


Fading Wallpaper, Peeling Paint

by thisyearsmodel



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward First Times, Breaking Up & Making Up, Family Dynamics, High School, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisyearsmodel/pseuds/thisyearsmodel
Summary: After failing to live out his dream of rock stardom, Ryan is forced to move back to to Vegas. Now he must try and fix all of the broken pieces he left behind through the years.
Relationships: Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie
Comments: 30
Kudos: 34





	1. I Still Got Pictures of Friends On the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> I'm literally laughing while I type this because I can't believe the time has finally come for me to post this absolute fucking nonsense that I have been wanting to write for literal years? It's gonna be long, and it's gonna be awkward, and it's gonna be posted here so I can once again delete fic from my laptop! Ugh, you know what? Just please have fun reading it because fic is fun and I promise you, I had fun writing it.

**Prologue**

There’s this idea, perpetuated by young adult novelists, sitcom characters, and the occasional John Hughes film, that the friends you make in high school are the friends you make for life. No matter where you move to after graduation, or how many different careers you start and stop and start over again, the constant in your life will always be the kids you hung out with after school. That decades later, you can walk into your best friend’s mom’s house and nothing will have changed since you were fifteen. The curtains in his bedroom will still be the same sea foam green color and the posters on the walls will be faded, hanging on to the chipped paint walls loosely by haphazard pieces of scotch tape. His garage will contain the same drum set he used to wail on, like fists pounding into angry flesh, that would wake up the neighbor’s dog and cause him to bark in rhythm to the embarrassingly bad bassline Brent used to play. That all these homes and bedrooms and bathrooms and backyards will remain the time capsule of youth before responsibility kicked you in the face and on your ass.

Ryan throws his duffle bag on the floor of Spencer’s bedroom and his shoulders slump. The sun peeking through the curtains casts a sickly green shadow into the carpeting. He examines the shape the shadow takes, elongating his already lanky features in a way that makes him look more alien than human. He already feels extraterrestrial, stepping his big black boots into the carpet that he doesn’t remember being so soft and squishy. It should feel as familiar as it did 15 years ago (and Christ, has it been that long? Ryan runs a hand over his face in exhaustion because he actually can’t remember the last time he was here in Ginger’s house) but he takes another step towards the twin bed like an outer space explorer, foot hovering before connecting to the floor.

Spencer claps a hand on his shoulder, warm and strong, and even though Ryan can’t see his face he knows Spencer is wearing that million-dollar smile that he wears so well.

“Welcome home,” he says. Ryan turns to see those blue eyes sparkling, the skin around them wrinkling with age.

“This is fuckin’ weird,” Ryan mumbles. Spencer moves to his childhood bed and hops on it just like he used to when he was a kid.

Ryan feels tired all the way down to his bones. Five-and-a-half-hour plane ride, three-hour time difference, numbers and letters and your flight is boarding and no one to say goodbye to so just get on the plane.

“You know what’s weirder?” Spencer asks. “My mom stocked up the kitchen with all the shit you used to eat as a kid. Froot by the Foot and Gushers and shit.”

Ryan smiles. “You ate all the Gushers already didn’t you?”

Spencer makes a solid attempt at stifling his laughter but his eyes give him away like they always did and the pair of them both shake their heads, chuckling. It’s maybe 3 seconds of time but it feels like eternity and Ryan wants to live in those 3 seconds for as long as he possibly can.

“Thanks,” Ryan says after seconds 4 and 5 pass by.

Spencer waves a hand in the air. “Don’t mention it, dude.”

“No really –“

“Come on, Ry –“

“– it means a lot and –“

“I said, don’t mention it,” Spencer repeats. His voice is sterner now and Ryan closes his mouth before he can say something else to rattle the moment.

Spencer hops off the bed. A memory of his younger self plays in Ryan’s head as he bounds towards the bedroom door. He slips past Ryan’s body, still standing like the alien he feels he is. His body feels heavier the longer he stands there and the bed looks more inviting now that Spencer’s rumpled up the covers as much as he has in the short amount of time he sat there. Ryan’s legs carry him without thinking straight to the bed and he collapses face first into the pillow and tries not to dream about anything but it’s a useless fight against his subconscious, as it always is.

*

It was four of them until it was three of them.

It was three of them until it was four of them.

It was four of them until it was three of them.

And then it was every man for himself.

*

Ryan called Trevor once and it still remains the most awkward conversation he has ever had in thirty-three years. Somehow it was less awkward than the time he saw Brent in a bar in fucking New York City because in a city with 60 million annual visitors, fate would ensure that Brent would walk into the same exact bar that Ryan visited weekly.

Standing at the bar, ordering a dark colored alcohol (Ryan couldn’t have discerned what kind at this point but something strong enough to get Brent fucked up, surely), Brent turned his gaze towards Ryan’s group at the sound of a particularly loud yelp of laughter from Z. She had thrown her head back in over-indulgence and wrapped a long arm around Ryan’s shoulders, tugging him closely and turning his head towards the bar on accident. Ryan jostled from the surprising strength of her grasp and laughed with her until he locked eyes with Brent across the room.

Brent looked like he wanted to fight Ryan and Ryan didn’t blame him. Ryan blamed him for a lot of things, but he wouldn’t have blamed Brent for throwing a sucker punch to his jaw after ten years of silence. Brent didn’t hit him, but Ryan still wishes he would have. For closure, he thinks.

Come to think of it, Brent didn’t even say a word to him. Just stared at him shot after shot while a brunette with long legs hung around his neck like an expensive necklace. Ryan let Z do the same, every now and then running his hand up and down her spine to show off his shinier accessory.

Thinking even harder on it, Ryan feels like Brent had to have known, right? Like, he had to have known Ryan was in New York. He had to have gone there knowing that they might run into each other. They were still the same people. Time changed a lot of things – the cut of Brent’s hair, the length of Ryan’s, the leather jacket he wore because the weather finally allowed him to. But certain things were engrained in their DNA like what beers they drank and what music got them to punch the air as hard as they could, and that bar had both of those elements in spades.

They haven’t seen each other since which isn’t the loss it should be. But sometimes, when “All the Small Things” comes on shuffle, Ryan gets visions of the two of them on Spencer’s couch, shoulder to shoulder, banging into each other as hard as they could with bright eyes and lopsided smiles.

*

Ryan doesn’t know what had possessed him to call Trevor, but it was the same morbid curiosity that Trevor must have had when he answered. 

“Yeah?” Trevor had answered. He sounded older because of course he did.

“Hey, uh, Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s Ryan.”

“Yeah…”

And that’s how the conversation went. One-word answers to Ryan’s long-winded questions and Ryan’s tongue felt heavy and dry by the end of the night. His thumb scrolled through the rest of his address book for a moment and it stopped to hover over one other name before ultimately deleting Trevor’s number from his phone.

He knew it stayed in the cloud, but even if it was a deletion in symbolism only, it made him feel better.

*

Last time he saw Brendon, Brendon was getting on a plane to Vegas. He had two bags packed, one slung over each shoulder.

Ryan didn’t actually see Brendon get on the plane. He saw him get in some Uber driver’s black Honda Civic and drive away from the safe window view of his apartment. He’s had years to think about whether that was the right decision or not. Sometimes he dreams about what would have happened if he ran down to the street, grabbed his arm before he opened the door to stop him. Maybe Ryan would have said something like “Don’t go” or “I’m coming with you.”

He wonders if Spencer told Brendon he was coming and has half a mind to ask, stretching his way out of the nap he took on Spencer’s bed. He can’t tell what time it is – the sun still hanging high, its rays filtering through the curtains and warming Ryan’s face.

He doesn’t have to wonder for too long as he checks his phone, charging on the bedside table, and he sees a text from Brendon. He never deleted his number. Just in case. Miracles happen.

_Welcome home._

**Chapter 1** : I’m Missing Too Many Pieces to Make it to the End

_Las Vegas, Nevada: Summer 2003_

At a certain point, Ryan really did think he would grow up to be a rock star. Not a David Lee Roth type of rock star (that kind of raw sex appeal only worked on one in a million guys), and certainly not a Freddie Mercury rock star (he didn’t have the pipes) or even a David Bowie rock star (he wasn’t weird enough, though he tried to be). A Mark Knopfler, maybe, but with a bit more charisma. A Lindsey Buckingham, to be sure.

Brent wanted to be Mark Hoppus. Ryan wondered if Brent knew the names of any other bassists.

Trevor was blonde, which meant the girls would come by when they jammed in Spencer’s garage. Ryan always remembered that The Beatles didn’t start a band to change the world of music; they started a band to get chicks. And Ryan was cool with starting a band to get chicks if it meant that after the chicks came, Ryan got to change the world.

The problem with all of that was, none of them were any good.

Spencer was good. Spencer was actually _really_ good. Probably too good to be playing with Brent and Trevor. Ryan didn’t have to be naturally good at the guitar because he had enough heart and drive to push himself to play every day until his fingers bled. He’d stand in front of his mirror in his bedroom for hours at a time watching his fingers fuck up over and over again. He’d curse his own clumsiness for only a minute before he would stand up tall again and reset his stance, back to the chords with fingers flying. He would think of the way Spencer would play – how much fun he seemed to be having each time he sat behind the kit, free and loose and uninhibited by anything because he just wanted to bang shit up. Ryan couldn’t play like that. He didn’t have the freedom to release all of that existential teenage angst that stirred in the pit of his stomach like a witch’s brew. Militant practice bred militant perfection. Practice, perform, get it right, god dammit, get it right. You’re going to be a fucking rock star one day, get it fucking right.

When Trevor quit the band, Ryan wrote him off both personally and professionally. Ryan didn’t need him and his sloppy guitar playing and shitty background vocals. Ryan didn’t anybody.

Spencer kept playing the drums though.

Brent was never a good bass player to begin with.

*

It’s Brent’s idea to steal Ryan’s dad’s beer.

“It’s not like he’s even gonna notice,” Brent says, cracking open the cooler in the garage. He grabs one for Ryan and tosses it at him. Thankfully, Ryan catches it, feeling it slip a bit in his grasp. The beer is ice cold and Ryan can feel the condensation wet his palms in the heat of his garage.

Brent tosses another to Spencer who grabs it in a cool, one handed catch. Brent looks like the type of behemoth to crack open the bottle cap with his teeth but he pulls out the keychain bottle opener he stole from his older brother and throws the keys to Ryan after. Ryan pries off the cap and he takes a long pull, bubbles coming up through the neck. It’s not his first sip of beer but it’s his first time drinking with friends, unsupervised. His sixteen-year-old brain floods with endorphins, thrilled by the idea of sneaking around like real teenagers do.

He half expects Spencer to say something about it, raising an eyebrow at his best friend in question. Spencer shrugs in response and drinks his beer so Ryan keeps drinking too. Spencer is tapping out a rhythm on his thigh against the music and Ryan leans in so their shoulders are connected and they bounce together on the couch.

It’s summer hot and sweltering in the garage but the fan is blowing and the drinks are cold so Ryan keeps drinking. He belches loudly, his friends laugh even louder, and Ryan doesn’t go down the road that’s lined with warning signs about drinking and enjoying it. He’s not his dad. He’s _not_. He’s sixteen and he’s with his friends and as long as he’s with his friends, he’s not in danger of anything.

“We should get a new singer,” Brent says.

“What’s wrong with Ryan’s singing?” Spencer asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan hiccoughs. “What’s wrong with my singing?”

“I got a friend from Biology last year who’s really good,” Brent says. “A little weird. A lot weird,” he adds.

“Does this friend have girl friends?” Spencer asks.

“More than you, dude,” Brent replies and Ryan ribs Spencer with his elbow like that was a sick burn.

“Invite him over,” Ryan says. “I’ll hear him out.”

“Yeah? I’ll tell him to bring some girls with him. Sick of this sausage fest every night, man,” Brent adds.

Ryan throws a pillow at Brent that shakes his body and spills his beer. Spencer laughs, short and high pitched. Ryan’s body warms at Spencer’s laugh and he doesn’t go down that road either. Not when he’s sober, not when he’s been drinking, not when the lights are off while he’s lying in bed.

They keep drinking until there’s a noticeable dent in the cooler and they play a sloppy game of _Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4_ until Brent yawns and lets himself out. Ryan watches him unable to walk a straight line and imagines how much trouble he’ll be in tonight if he gets caught.

Spencer gets up and Ryan lays a hand on his arm, wraps his fingers around Spencer’s bicep and pulls lightly.

“Dude, my mom really wants me to get home,” he says with sympathy in his voice.

“You don’t have to stay the whole night,” Ryan reasons. “Just like, until he gets home or whatever.”

Spencer sits back down on the couch. “And when will that be?”

Ryan shrugs. “I dunno, man,” he lies and hands Spencer the controller back.

“Old man leave you cash for pizza?” Spencer asks, not looking away from the TV screen.

“Yeah, it’s on the counter.”

“Alright,” Spencer says.

They order pizza and sodas because Ryan’s fridge is empty again. They play for a few more hours and eat greasy slices of pizza on the couch without worrying about cleaning up. Ginger calls around 9:00, looking for her son. Spencer tells her he decided to spend the night and he promises her, sincerely, he’ll come straight home in the morning just in time for breakfast. She makes him say goodnight and say “I love you” twice before letting him off the phone.

“You didn’t have to do that, man,” Ryan groans. Spencer waves a hand in the air.

“I didn’t do anything, dude.”

*

Ryan goes to Spencer’s house for breakfast the next morning because his fridge is empty and his dad didn’t come home last night.

Ginger makes waffles and ruffles Ryan’s hair each time she passes by because she knows it annoys him. She doesn’t ask Ryan about his dad, but he can see it in her blue eyes that she really, really wants to. She keeps her tongue pressed behind her teeth and pours Ryan extra orange juice without him having to ask.

When Ryan was nine, Ginger took him and Spencer with her on a trip to the grocery store. Spencer and Ryan walked up and down the aisles stealing the coupons from the coupon machine, trying to collect as many as they could like baseball cards. Ginger didn’t stop them, just let out an exasperated sigh when she caught Spencer booking it down the canned soup aisle and told him to quit running in the store, _please Spencer James Smith or I swear to God --_

A dark-haired woman with soft features grabbed Ginger’s cart and the two moms hugged like old friends. Ryan came around from behind and hid next to Ginger’s skirt. She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer to her. The dark-haired woman clapped her hands and held them underneath her chin and remarked at how tall Spencer had gotten. Ginger chuckled and rubbed Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan looked up at her, eyes expectant and slightly embarrassed at the mix-up.

“Oh no,” Ginger corrected, a light laughter to her voice. “This is Ryan.” The dark-haired mom raised an eyebrow and noted how she never knew Ginger had an older son. Ginger shrugged but never corrected her. She could have said “oh this is Ryan, the neighbor boy my son spends all day with” or “Ryan, the scrappy kid whose dad is never around” but she just said Ryan like he really was her son.

She kept one arm on the shopping cart, the other tight around his shoulders and pressed him into her side while they chatted about their boys signing up for hockey this winter. Ginger had remarked that Spencer wasn’t interested “but Ryan here loves hockey!” she exclaimed and the dark-haired woman said “Oh, then he’ll probably play with Trevor’s league!” like a cause for celebration and they laughed at their boys until Spencer ran up to Ryan with a fist full of coupons all wadded up like cash.

“You know, you boys should really get a summer job,” Ginger says. She’s got one eye on Ryan and one eye on Spencer watching them inhale their waffles as she slides into her place at the head of the kitchen table.

“ _Mom_ ,” Spencer groans. “Where are we gonna get a summer job?”

“What about at the hockey rink?” she chirps.

“It’s summer,” Spencer reminds her. “Who plays hockey in the summer?”

Ginger rolls her eyes and blows on her coffee before taking a sip. “Fine, how about the library?”

Spencer responds with an eye roll and goes back to his waffles.

“I’d work at a library,” Ryan mutters.

“Of course you would, dear.”

Spencer smirks behind a mouth full of food at the use of his mom’s pet name and elbows Ryan’s shoulder playfully. Ginger glares at her son but says nothing that might embarrass Ryan and for that, and so many other things, he is thankful.

“Brent knows a kid who works in the mall,” Spencer says to Ryan. “I mean, if we really wanted a job, we could ask him about it.”

“Yeah but what about band practice?” Ryan asks and Ginger sucks her teeth as she gets up for more coffee.

“What about it? Brent sucks anyway.”

“Yeah, but we don’t.”

Spencer hums like Ryan has a point.

“Hey, Mom!” Spencer calls out. “Can Ryan stay over tonight?”

It’s 9:00 in the morning, historically a little too early to ask and get a straight answer. But Ginger asks Ryan anyway, “Dad working late tonight?”

“I think so,” he says. He’s not lying because he really does think so.

Ginger doesn’t sigh but exhales heavily and smiles at her son. “Just Ryan though. Not Brent or Trevor.”

“Man, fuck Trevor –“

“Spencer, language.” And she doesn’t yell it but it’s still stern enough for Spencer to grumble a “sorry mom” under his breath.

Ginger nods and the boys clean up the leftover dishes. Ryan feels a little bit lighter, even if he didn’t notice the heaviness in his bones before.

They go to the garage and Spencer starts spinning his sticks in the air before he can even sit behind the kit. He goes at it with a full force behind him, banging and beating like the drum kit really deserved the ass kicking. Once it’s out of his system he slows it down to a smooth beat that Ryan can’t pick out as anything he’s heard before. He plucks his guitar to something he made up and gives Spencer a second to catch up before they settle into something that sounds good. Ryan hums nothing but a melody that’s been burning in his brain for a few days that doesn’t sound half bad.

He has a few lyrics that don’t fit quite right with the mood – that’s his problem with lyrics right now. They don’t fit in the stanzas, like a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing a few pieces, or has a few too many corner ones. Spencer tells him it’s still pretty good at the end and Ryan agrees that it’s not too bad. Not too bad won’t make him a rock star though, so he tells Spencer it’ll be perfect when it’s done. Spencer’s smile illuminates the garage and he wails on the drums again like Tarzan. They jam like two brothers in a rock and roll band until Ginger tells them it’s time for dinner.


	2. I Feel My Pulse Quickening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a content warning for underage kids watching porn - starts at the first asterisk and ends after that point.

With Trevor gone, the girls stopped coming by the rest of the summer. With the girls gone, it was hard for the group to play to an audience of none.

Ryan could admit he was cute – girls told him as much the last two years of high school, anyway. But the girls who found Ryan cute, found Ryan _cute_ , and not hot or sexy or any of the adjectives that would get Ryan a girlfriend. He would let them hang on his body during lunch, draped over him in flirty conversation with him or Spencer (who did his best not to stare and sputter any time a girl so much as looked at him) but he never got anywhere and certainly not past the pitiful “Ryan, you’re so cute, but…” after he would ask them out.

Liking girls was easy: blonde, athletic, if she was into good music and not like, exclusively listened to Christina Aguilera or whatever, that was a bonus. She didn’t even really need to be blonde, that was just a bonus too. Or, athletic. If she wasn’t _actually_ athletic but she looked athletic then all the better.

Just a nice, pretty girl. That’s all Ryan was asking for.

Pretty girls were readily available to stare at in the late summer of the Vegas suburbs. They would walk around in soft shorts with the band rolled twice, converse sneakers and tight tanks with spaghetti straps. Ryan liked the tank top part – that glimpse of tan skin that slipped out between the end of the tee and the start of the rolled waist band. The girls would walk in groups between 2 and 6 all around the neighborhood and giggle as they walked past Spencer’s garage. Ryan was never sure what they were giggling at, but he didn’t feel good about it.

School starts August 25. Ryan’s birthday is the Sunday after. Spencer’s is that Tuesday.

They had thrown joint birthday parties annually since Ryan turned seven. Ryan looked forward to their shared festivities every year. He got the whole nine yards: cake cutting, candle blowing, a chorus of family members that didn’t officially belong to him singing “Happy Birthday RyanandSpencer” at the end of the night. Sometimes his dad would join in. Sometimes.

They’re drinking beer in Ryan’s garage. No band practice which only leaves Ryan a little disappointed. He still plays with Spencer, sometimes without Brent there, but it doesn’t feel the same as it did with all four of them, knocking shit over and jumping up and down before the song ended.

“I was thinking,” Spencer says, cutting through the silence. “You know our birthdays?” Ryan nods. “You wanna throw a before school party instead of a birthday party?”

“Like, celebrate our birthday before school instead of after it starts?” Ryan asks.

Spencer nods but looks down, playing with the label of his beer bottle that’s sweating off in the garage heat. “Yeah, I was thinking we could have it here? Like, instead of my house.”

“Yeah, but we always have it at your house,” Ryan reminds him.

“I know, dude. But like, Mom’s not going to let me have more than you two come over that close to school starting and I was thinking, like, why not invite everyone?”

“Who’s everyone?”

“I dunno like…girls’n’stuff.”

Ryan laughs. He doesn’t mean to but he’s looking at Spencer, earnest and a little scared of girls at fifteen-going-on-sixteen, and he’s on his second beer so he laughs and laughs, full and hearty. Spencer rolls his eyes and hits Ryan with a pillow and Brent starts laughing from his spot on top of the cooler and Ryan, honest to God, he forgot Brent was even there.

“I can throw it,” Brent says. There are traces of laughter still in his voice. “My parents don’t care. Plus, I can get more beer and shit.”

Ryan considers the offer. Brent had an in-ground pool that never got used, and his older brother was definitely the type of degenerate to supply a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids with beer and other libations.

It could work.

“You just want a bunch of girls in bikinis in your back yard,” Ryan jokes.

“Yeah, no shit,” Brent says, laughing. He leans over to Spencer on the couch and clinks their beer bottles together to seal the deal.

*

Freshman year, Ryan’s dad buys him a desktop computer and puts it in his bedroom.

Ryan had bitched about it; said he would need one for school to write essays on. He made a pretty good case for it. Promised he wouldn’t be on it at all hours of the night and having it wouldn’t affect his grades in any negative way. He’d use it responsibly, sir, he really would. No chat rooms, no “to catch a predator” shit.

The first thing Brent did when he saw it in Ryan’s room, was google “porn.”

Spencer shoved him out of the way. “You don’t just google fucking porn, idiot.” He typed in something more descriptive: naked blondes. That didn’t really deliver the results Spencer was hoping for, but they were at least more specific than the weird links that Brent’s search resulted in.

Three teenage boys stood in Ryan’s bedroom scrolling and clicking like they were a bunch of paleontologists on a dig. Who could find the biggest bones?

They settled on a video of a brunette with huge, fake tits on her knees swallow down the biggest dick Ryan had ever seen at age thirteen. Her eyes rolled back in her head so far that Ryan could no longer see her pupils, just the glassy whites of her eyes. She looked possessed and wrecked, her throat making these wet, choked sounds punctuated by moans of absolute pleasure. Her fingers wrapped around the guys hips to steady herself before his hips started snapping into her. Those fingers flexed around the skin and squeezed, and the choking sputters were louder, and this guy’s balls were smacking her chin in a primal way that made Ryan feel even more uncomfortable watching this with his two best friends.

Spencer and Brent’s eyes were glued to the screen, all that was missing from the scene was a full bag of popcorn in each of their laps.

When it ended, the face of brunette porn star covered in this guy’s load, all three boys stared motionless at the screen. No one said anything nor did they chance to look at each other.

“Let’s walk to Taco Bell,” Brent said. The three of them nodded, still staring at the screen. Ryan exited out of the window so they could leave.

They never brought it up again. They never tried to look at porn as a group, either. Ryan never watched that particular clip but he found others like it and if sometimes it was a guy on his knees instead of a busty brunette, no one but Ryan needed to know that.

*

Brent’s house is nicer than Ryan’s and just barely nicer than Spencer’s for the large in-ground pool alone. It’s bigger than Ryan’s, but he doesn’t know it inside and out like he does The Smiths’. It’s missing that extra something that makes a house a home, like a mom who makes dinner every night and the loud sounds of fighting siblings filling up the backyard.

But he has a pool.

Ryan doesn’t wear swim trunks because he’s skinny enough as it is without girls poking his ribs and saying “Wow, Ryan, you’re _so skinny_.” He wears black jeans and a blink-182 tee and puts his black gauges in his ears and runs gel through his hair. He won’t be getting it wet anyway so, he guesses, why not?

Spencer does wear swim trunks. And flip-flops. And looks every bit of fifteen in the face which makes Ryan smile like a protective older brother, even if they’re only one year apart.

“Happy birthday, dude,” Ryan says. Spencer smiles and wishes him the same.

No one thought that Brent had any real friends outside of Ryan and Spencer (and Trevor, noticeably absent after quitting the band and thus quitting on his friends) but he’s proved them all wrong tonight. There are girls in bikinis and boys in swim trunks and Ryan recognizes some of the girls from the former captivated audience that flocked to Spencer’s garage. Half the neighborhood is in Brent Wilson’s backyard and Ryan sees a bunch of kids he doesn’t recognize that must go to Brent’s school. He frowns for a second – wasn’t this supposed to be Ryan and Spencer’s birthday party? But his frown dissipates when Brent throws an arm around his shoulder, a cold beer can in his hand right next to Ryan’s face. Ryan takes it and snaps it open. He clashes his can next to Brent and cheers to their birthdays.

“Hey! Brent!” a voice calls and the three of them whip their necks around to see a kid with dark hair and the biggest smile Ryan’s ever seen light up their way.

“Oh, shit, Brendon!” Brent yells back.

He takes off towards the kid, leaving Spencer and Ryan to stare at the pool for only a moment before he’s back, as quick as he left. The boy with the big smile is beaming at his side.

“Ryan, Spencer, this is my buddy, Brendon. The musical one.”

Brent’s introduction is sloppy which means he’s been drinking well before the party started. Brendon, “the musical one,” sticks his hand out Ryan’s way in greeting. Ryan takes it on autopilot and his palm is smooth but his fingers are rough and Ryan idly thinks that he must play guitar or something with a hand like that. He looks up at Brendon and sees the kid still smiling and wow, this kid has a big fucking mouth. Like, the biggest mouth Ryan’s ever seen. And very straight teeth that are clenched together in a smile that continues to look more awkward each second that Ryan doesn’t release his hand.

Ryan continues to hold on to it, even as Brendon’s dark eyebrows knit together on his forehead and his deep brown eyes (as big as that mouth of his and just as soft) narrow in confusion. He’s got dark hair that covers most of his forehead which Ryan can tell is just as large as every other feature. He’s a lot to take in and Ryan’s eyes don’t stop studying him.

“Dude,” Spencer interrupts. “You alright?”

The voice snaps Ryan from his reverie and he drops Brendon’s hand suddenly. He takes a swig from the can to cover the flush on his face and coughs as he swallows it down.

“Uhm, heard it’s your birthdays or something?” Brendon asks. “So, uh, happy birthday. To both of you, right?”

Spencer nods. “Hey, thanks, man. Ryan’s isn’t for another week and mine’s right after but like, cool. Thanks.”

Ryan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands there while Brendon says “So, Brent says you guys are in a band?” and Spencer takes the lead on this one. The two volley a conversation back and forth between them while Ryan allows his eyes to continue exploring. He sees that Brendon isn’t wearing swim trunks either but dark jeans and a tee like Ryan is. He’s skinny but not like Ryan is skinny. He’s an inch or two shorter and he fills out the clothes he’s wearing better than Ryan does. Ryan doesn’t pull at the bottom of his tee because he’s self-conscious.

There are girls staring at the four of them from across the pool and that’s Brent’s cue to walk away, say hello and attempt to flirt. Brent was like a dog with a bone where girls were concerned and wouldn’t stop until he had at least one pair of lips attached to his by the end of the night.

Spencer says, “Hey, Brendon, want a beer?”

“Yeah, man, cool. Thank you,” he says.

Spencer walks between them and leaves them alone to grab a beer from the cooler. Brendon lifts his hand and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“I like your shirt,” Brendon says.

“Thanks. Yours too,” Ryan responds. The beaming bright light of his smile returns, and Ryan feels like the sun itself is shining right at him even though it’s setting, pink and purple and orange, behind him.

“Yeah?” Brendon asks and licks his oversized lip, eyes darting to find Spencer and where that damn beer could be. “Queen’s up there with like, the best of the best, for me.”

Ryan smiles. “Freddie’s probably the best vocalist of time,” he says.

“Oh, no doubt, dude. The best. For sure.”

Spencer brings the beer over and Brendon takes it, thankfully.

He’s polite, Ryan notes. Lots of “please” and “thank you” and “nice to meet you.” He also can’t stay still. He keeps shuffling his weight from foot to foot. His free hand floats in and out of his pocket, behind his head, rubbing the back of his neck, playing with the long hair behind his ear. He drums on the side of his thigh when they sit down on the folding chairs by the edge of the pool, just the three of them. He tips his head back all the way when he laughs and it sounds like a bomb going off the way dozens of heads turn his way to investigate the source of the sound. He tells stories with his hands flailing about and leans forward all the way, elbows resting on his knees, one knee constantly bouncing up and down.

It’s late. The girls are out of the pool and wrapped up in towels. Ryan must have missed Brent’s brother lighting up the fire pit but everyone else is huddled together around it. Spencer, Ryan, and Brendon are still sitting on the folding chairs talking about nothing. The beer keeps Ryan warm and his skin fizzes with a different kind of energy. Brendon talks about music and all the instruments he plays (so many, what the fuck is that about) and when he belts out a long note Ryan’s neck snaps to face him. He can’t believe the sound that comes out of his (very large, Ryan can’t stop staring at it) mouth. Even Spencer’s eyebrows fly up in astonishment. A girl or two turns her attention to them three of them before deciding it isn’t worth her time to interrupt whatever is happening there.

They leave the party without saying goodbye to Brent, not for any other reason than Brent looks preoccupied with a tongue down his throat and his hands full of teenage girl ass. They walk to Spencer’s house and sneak in through the garage. Ryan stumbles against the amp, arms like spaghetti as he picks up the guitar.

“Aren’t we gonna wake up your parents?” Brendon asks.

Spencer and Ryan laugh. Spencer bangs his drumsticks in the air with a one, two, one-two-three and they launch into some song or another. He lets Spencer and Brendon start them off, Brendon playing Brent’s bass because that’s another instrument he can play (about just as well as Brent can). Ryan falls in line as soon as he recognizes the song and they get something going with Brendon’s vocals, strong and fearless, filling the walls of the garage.

At the end of it, the tell-tale bang through the wall of Ginger telling them to quit it and for Ryan to go home finishes the party for them. Ryan’s breathless and sweaty from the garage and the playing and he looks at Brendon who says, “I’ll walk home with you” and yeah, okay.

“That was fucking awesome,” Brendon breathes out.

They stand in the middle of the street that feels awkwardly quiet after all the noise they just finished making. Brendon looks up at the stars and it’s the first time he’s been still all night. His breathing is a little labored from belting but so is Ryan’s. Brendon smiles up at the moon and then turns that smile back to Ryan and Ryan smiles back, lopsided but still showing teeth. They both put their hands in their pockets and walk the few steps back to Ryan’s and when they stop there, Ryan doesn’t feel like going inside.

“There’s a park down the road like, three blocks or something,” Ryan says. “If you’re not ready to go home either.”

“Nah,” Brendon tells him. “I mean, I could hang. If you could hang. I could hang, too.”

“Yeah, I could hang.”

They walk to the park with hands in their pockets in a comfortable silence while they look down at their shoes. At some point, Brendon starts talking again, and he starts asking questions about what else Ryan does and if he writes his own songs. Ryan visibly brightens when he discusses his ideas for a band that might do great things and make great music. Brendon says something like “man, I have that dream too.” Ryan doesn’t know how they ended up at the park so fast as he sits on the swing and says it’s not just a dream. Brendon says “no, man, no I get it, I totally get it” and Ryan says “yeah?” like he doesn’t believe him. But Brendon starts going on about performing and stage designs and Ryan’s pulse quickens because yeah, he does totally get it.

It’s 1 in the morning and somehow, they’re not done talking but they make plans to talk more tomorrow as they turn back to Ryan’s house. Ryan wants to slip Brendon inside and keep him locked away in his closet. His new friend, a shiny new toy that he got for his birthday this year.


	3. I’m Another Day Late and One Year Older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for an adult buying a teenager alcohol. Please see archive tags for all warnings and thank you for reading!

_Summer 2004_

Brendon is bad at skateboarding.

He’s jumping and kicking the pavement with one foot, the other foot firm on the board, but he’s not pushing hard enough so he doesn’t get too far. He keeps wobbling like he just won’t commit to actually doing an ollie on the sidewalk but if he could find a way to get the momentum, he would probably be able to do it. Ryan watches him stumble from the doorway of his home, arms crossed, one eyebrow up.

“You suck at this,” he calls out.

Brendon laughs loudly and does a three-point turn to face Ryan’s direction. His face is red and flushed from the Vegas heat, his forehead already sweating and dark bangs sticking to his skin.

“Have you been out here all morning?” Ryan asks. It’s 8:30 on a Tuesday and summer only started last week. Brendon’s been over nearly every morning since school ended, which should be weird, but it isn’t.

Brendon flips the hair from his eyes and the flush on his cheeks deepens.

“Nah, dude. I just got here like ten minutes ago.”

He’s lying. That’s okay.

Brendon kicks his skateboard up to his side in a move that looks much smoother than all of his other ones this morning. The kid just spent however many hours making a fool of himself in front of Ryan’s street on that damn board but as he stands before Ryan now, you’d never know it. He strides up to Ryan’s door with an easy confidence and the sun rays scatter behind him like a scene straight out of a teen drama. It’s not the first time that Ryan’s thought something like that about his friend. He stuffs this particular one straight down to the bottom of the jar he keeps locked away in his mind; the jar that’s filled with other thoughts about other guys. There’s a note on that jar: do not open under penalty of death. Despite the warning, there have been a few times this year that Ryan’s opened it, played around with the thoughts in there, only to lock it back up again. He watches Brendon swallow, follows the muscles in his throat, and Ryan adds that image to the jar as well.

He walks right in like he owns the place, pushing past Ryan and leaving his skateboard outside by the front door. He grabs a soda from the fridge before walking straight into Ryan’s room without a word and Ryan lets him.

Brendon leans back on Ryan’s bed (another image for the jar) and turns on the television, his long legs spread to the foot of the bed with his neck supported by the pillows, resting on his forearms. Ryan sits at his computer desk and checks the usual: Myspace, LiveJournal, Xanga. Brendon taps a rhythm on the remote that reminds him of a song he wrote over winter break Junior Year and he hears Brendon hum the melody. That voice of his, Ryan thinks, is something so special. HIs chest constricts just a tiny bit, thinking about the demo they never ended up recording over Easter break. They made plans to do it – Brendon worked overtime at the Tropical Smoothie in the mall to help pay for it – but Brent took a job at Hot Topic (“for the discount”) and couldn’t get the time off and Spencer took a trip out to visit his grandparents in Colorado and their schedules never synced up properly.

In two months, Ryan enters his last year of high school. He wonders if they can get their shit together by that time.

“Think we can still reserve that space you found by the end of summer?” Ryan asks.

“For the demo?” Brendon asks in turn. Ryan nods from his computer chair and he can hear Brendon moving around the pillows, his body giving away his excitement.

“Fuck yeah, dude!” he shouts.

Ryan chuckles at him. He spins in his chair to take a good luck at Brendon, all bright eyed and sitting upright now.

They had spent most of the last year pouring over music, particularly the lyrics. Ryan kept pushing Brendon “no you have to sing it like _this_ ” and more than once Brendon had said “fuck this shit you sing your own damn lyrics from now on” before walking out of the garage. Spencer would be the first to chase after him, leaving Ryan to sulk and pick at the strings of his guitar or kick the fridge off to the side. He dented it one time after he heard Brendon say something like “who the fuck does this kid think he is anyway?” to Spencer, yelling at the top of his lungs (and if he had just fucking sang it exactly the way he just yelled it they wouldn’t be having this argument in the first place). Brent would never say anything – except the first time Brendon walked out when he said “Ryan, dude, take it easy on him” which did nothing but make matters worse – and sometimes Ryan wished Spencer stayed in the garage to calm _him_ down instead of running after Brendon every time. Leave Brent to run after him, after all Brendon was Brent’s friend before he was Spencer’s. But Brent wasn’t running after anyone and whatever Spencer would say always seemed to do the trick because Brendon would come back and they would try the song again and, in the end, Brendon sang it perfectly each and every time.

It wasn’t just about playing the songs when Brendon would come for practice. They were performing it, breathing life and energy into it from the dead space of Ryan’s pen and paper. Ryan hadn’t found a partner yet that could match him in intensity, in drive to succeed, in talent. Spencer was talented and sure, if you asked him, he’d tell you he wanted to be a rock star but without Ryan and Brendon following up on gigs and spaces, he’d be fine with drumming in his garage all day. But Brendon wanted this just as much as Ryan did, he made that clear the first night they met.

“Think we could sneak in a show or something too?” Brendon asks.

“I mean, yeah, I don’t see why not. We’ve got like, an album’s worth of songs at this point. We could play a few, maybe a few covers.” Ryan starts mulling it over in his head. Brendon’s been on a Smashing Pumpkins kick, maybe they could cover one of their songs.

“Oh dude, speaking of, have you heard about this band from Chicago? The Academy Is or whatever?”

Ryan nods. He’s seen them on Myspace. He likes the singer’s voice but he hasn’t heard enough from them to really form an opinion.

“They’re playing at Revolution next month,” Brendon says. “We should go.”

“Yeah, alright,” Ryan says.

Brendon looks pleased with himself and leans back against Ryan’s pillows again. His fingers still drum the beat of Ryan’s song on the tops of his thighs while he flips through the channels. It’s an image Ryan puts in a separate jar, one that he’ll open and shut for years to come.

*

Posting lyrics and poetry on the internet is fucking daunting. Not that Ryan thinks his lyrics are bad. They aren’t. They’re really fucking good. They’re not just “passing grade in English” good either, even though he’s gotten the most praise on them from his actual English teachers.

It’s really just the question of intention here. Ryan types it all out and lets his stream of consciousness play out before him on the screen. He likes where it’s going so he keeps typing and suddenly he’s pressing post for the twenty-three friends he has on LiveJournal to skim their eyes over. But are they going to “get it”? How do you communicate the meaning without giving the whole thing away? Ryan likes being vague because that’s half of the fun. Each line is the clue to the mystery of whatever he’s writing out in that moment. Who is smart enough to connect the dots and solve it and what’s their prize for getting it right?

He gets a comment from a girl he’s been talking to since he started posting on here. She says something about a cocktail of emotions in the different lines and that’s a good way to put it, Ryan thinks. It’s at least on the right track to completing the puzzle. He tells her as much, and the part of his teenage brain that’s ruled by hormones makes sure the message comes off a little flirty. She takes the bait and flirts a comment back.

They move the conversation to AIM. She tells him she lives in California and she just celebrated her seventeenth birthday before the end of school. She’ll be a senior too and she’s seen Ryan on Myspace but hasn’t Friend Requested him yet. She doesn’t say why not, but Ryan gets it. The question of intention.

She’s got blonde hair and she’s tall and skinny like Ryan is but she’s not too skinny – she’s still got a curve or two. She’s got deep brown eyes that are covered in too much eyeliner and she looks too fucking cool to be even entertaining Ryan’s stupid poetry. She’s also funny and Ryan’s actually laughing out loud every time he types out “lol” in the chat box.

They talk about the scene; she’s knee deep in it while Ryan’s still trying to squeeze a toe in. LA is where it’s at, she says, and how does a seventeen-year-old know that? Ryan asks her and he’s been chatting with her all night, so his mind fills in the blanks. He can see the way she would throw her hair over her shoulder, easy and confident with the peak of her shoulder pointed his way, as she says “You just gotta get in there. Don’t they have shows in Vegas?”

It’s a three- and half-hour drive from door to door and he invites her to The Academy Is… set in July that Brendon told him about this morning. She says she’ll be there and sends him the blowing kisses smiley face. He promises to text her tomorrow as soon as he wakes up. She tells him he better and he feels a bolt of lightning shoot down his spine as he reads through their messages one last time before going to bed.

*

Ryan doesn’t make mistakes when he plays. These are his songs that he wrote and he knows them backwards and forwards and left and right and up and down. He wrote the lyrics. He wrote the notes. Some notes Brendon wrote. Some notes Spencer wrote. But the song is his and he feels the music like it’s part of his DNA.

He fumbles halfway through the as yet untitled song they practice in Spencer’s garage for the fifth time today. Spencer bangs on the cymbals with a crash that cuts Brendon’s voice off in the middle of a lyric.

“Dude, where are you?” Spencer asks. He’s got his sticks in one hand, pointing them threateningly at Ryan from behind the kit.

“Yeah, man,” Brent chimes in. “I felt like we were finally getting somewhere here.”

Brendon looks at him with pity in his big brown eyes like he knows something is wrong. He even looks like he might know what it is. Ryan doesn’t even know what it is.

He looks down at the neck of his guitar where his fingers messed up again and again today. He wants to throw the guitar on the ground, like he used to throw his Xbox controller when Spencer would beat him for the fifth time.

“Leave him alone,” Brendon says when Ryan doesn’t answer. Ryan looks up at Brendon with a thank you in his eyes and Brendon nods. He licks his lips and says, “I think we all need a fucking break today.”

“Your parents home?” Spencer asks to Brent. He doesn’t look at Ryan or Brendon.

“I think they said they were going to dinner or something,” he mumbles.

Spencer gets up and stretches his neck, rolls his shoulders, releases the tension. “Beers are on Brent,” he says. Brent starts packing up his bass. Ryan doesn’t know why he doesn’t leave the damn thing in Spencer’s garage. It’s not like he practices at home, anyway.

Spencer leaves through the side door, presumably to change from his sweaty t-shirt after a day of practice. Brent follows him and leaves Brendon and Ryan to stand in the garage awkwardly while Ryan unplugs his guitar and puts it in the case.

“You alright?” Brendon asks to Ryan’s back, turned away from him.

“Yeah, fine,” Ryan lies.

“We’ll get the space,” Brendon says. “If that’s what you’re freaking out about –“

“I’m not freaking out,” Ryan barks.

He twists around to face Brendon who doesn’t flinch at Ryan’s outburst. Those stupid eyes of his, those big, prominent features that make up an expressive face, they stare back at Ryan, defiant and unnerved. Ryan breaks first and let’s his body relax, runs a hand over his face and groans to the ceiling. Brendon puts a hand on Ryan’s shoulder with a smile on his face. Ryan doesn’t lean into it but he wants to. He wants Brendon to take his thumb and rub at his collar bone, sweep back and forth until the anxious energy in his body is drained out completely.

Ryan’s phone vibrates in his back pocket and he releases the hold Brendon has on him to check it. A text from Jac, asking about his day, and he smiles as he reads the letters over and over again.

“Good news?” Brendon asks. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and toes his sneakers into the concrete shyly. It’s weird.

Ryan flips the phone shut and shoves it back into his jeans. “That girl I told you about. She just texted.”

Brendon waggles his eyebrows and laughs. “Ahh yes, the not-dude named Jack,” he teases.

“Shut up,” Ryan mumbles but he’s laughing a bit, too.

“What’s the old lady want?”

Ryan shrugs. “Just checking in,” he says. “Hey uh, I invited her to the show. I hope that’s okay.”

Brendon frowns. “Doesn’t she live in California?”

“Yeah but she’s got a car so…” he trails off and shrugs again. “I mean, yeah, but like if she doesn’t show or whatever. Like, it’s still gonna be a good time, so.”

Brendon laughs. “I’m still convinced she is actually some fifty-year-old pedo in his mom’s basement.”

Ryan gives Brendon a playful shove. Spencer yells out that they’re going to Brent’s and so they leave the garage and head over for beers and jokes and stupid shit that makes Ryan forget all about his clumsy fingers or Brendon’s right hand on his shoulder.

*

Revolution is dark and smells like cigarette smoke that lingers in Ryan’s hair and on his clothes long after he’s left. His dad trusts him enough to know he’s not smoking when he walks in the door, sweaty and stinking from the show, but he still rumples his face and tells Ryan to shower before bed. When Ryan was fifteen, his dad made mention of the fact that his son shouldn’t be out that late on a school night. Ryan had to remind him it was a Saturday. He had shrugged from the couch and never brought it up again, even when Ryan did stroll in at midnight on a Thursday to catch a show on occasion.

The venue is bathed in red lights and the floors are sticky before the show even starts. It’s almost always all-ages, but the bartenders have never checked the X on Ryan’s hand before. Brendon’s all bounce and energy, waiting in line for the doors to open. Ryan likes going to shows with Brendon. He’s wild and unhinged on a normal night but throw him in an energetic crowd and he doesn’t stop for a moment. He’s a spinning top ready to shoot off into the night. It helps Ryan to let his guard down enough to bop along and drink in every moment.

“I’m gonna get us drinks,” Ryan says when they step in the door. Brendon says something like “yeah, yeah” and goes to the merch table without waiting for Ryan.

It’s not packed, but Ryan has to meander through bodies at the bar and fight for the bartender’s attention. He waits and waits while guys who are clearly older than him pop in and out and leave with drinks in hand. He waves his hand in the air to try and flag the guy down as he pours a vodka and cranberry for a blonde in a low-cut tank top. She winks at the bartender and doesn’t leave a tip. Ryan fishes into his pocket to pull the $20 bill out, like maybe that will get the guy’s attention, and then he hears a laugh coming from behind him.

“Someone’s gonna snatch that right out of your hand, kid.”

Ryan’s got a good five inches on the guy behind him, smiling wickedly with bright eyes. His black bangs hang like spikes over his forehead. His t-shirt is tight, and his pants are even tighter. They show off a fit body underneath that makes Ryan swallow hard. His mind plays a reel of a fantasy in mere seconds. This guy beneath him, rolling his hips into Ryan’s in the dirty bathroom stall of the venue. His lips attached to Ryan’s throat, scraping lightly. Ryan’s hands sliding underneath his thin tee and grasping onto warm skin.

He’s hot. He’s really hot.

“What’re you drinking?” he asks.

Ryan’s arm lowers slowly to his side, $20 still in his fist. “Uhm. Beer.”

Hot guy laughs. “Sure, you are.”

He snaps his fingers at the bartender who quickly and finally turns his attention Ryan’s way. The bartender smiles and hot guy goes, “2 beers, whatever’s on tap.” The bartender nods and turns to pour out two beers in plastic cups and hands them to hot guy. He says, “Here you go, Pete” and hot guy – Pete – winks before handing one to Ryan.

Ryan’s got the $20 still in his hands and he tells Pete “I don’t have change” but Pete hands him the cup to his free hand and says, “It’s on me.”

“Thanks,” Ryan stuffs the $20 in his pocket. He forgets he was grabbing one for Brendon too and he turns around to look for him in the crowd that’s filling up. Brendon’s still by the merch table, chatting with some other kid who he looks friendly enough to possibly know from somewhere else (or, knowing Brendon, he doesn’t know this kid at all). Ryan thinks it’s safe to lean against the bar at least until he finishes his beer.

“I’m Pete,” he says, sticking his hand out like a punch. “What’s your name, kid?”

Ryan takes it quickly and tries to swallow his beer just as fast. “Ryan,” he introduces.

Pete nods while gripping Ryan’s hand strong. They shake and he looks at Ryan from top to toe, sizing him up. Ryan can’t help the flush from creeping up his neck and blossoming over his cheeks. He hopes the red lights hide it.

“How old are you, Ryan?” Pete asks.

“How old are you?” Ryan responds.

“I asked you first.”

He has a point. Ryan takes another sip of beer.

“22,” he lies. He always says he’s 22. 21 is too obvious and anything older than that is pretty unbelievable with the stubborn pimples still stuck to his chin.

Pete hums. “22, huh? When’s your birthday?”

“You a cop?” Ryan asks. Pete laughs and it sounds so deep that Ryan’s stomach flips.

“Not a cop, I promise,” he says with his hands up.

The house lights flash and the crowd begins to murmur and migrate towards the center of the room. Pete’s wicked smile returns.

“Enjoy the show, Ryan,” he says and walks away just in time for Ryan to feel Brendon’s hand on his elbow, tugging.

“Yeah, you too. Thanks again,” he says but his voice is drowned out by the cheers as the band takes the stage. Brendon tugs him again and they head to the floor. Brendon doesn’t say anything about his missing beer.

They’re better live than Ryan had expected. The singer has long hair that waves past his shoulders and he has a pretty face to match the voice. They play with an energy that Ryan feels underneath his skin and he rocks back and forth on his heels and his head bobs while Brendon jumps beside him. They feel like a band, evenly matched in talent. The singer moves around the stage like he owns the joint, the same way Brendon peacocks in the garage. Ryan can see it clearly: Brendon preening over the audience and Ryan playing in the corner. Brendon would walk up to him every now and then like he does during practice to shove the mic in his face to sing along in harmony. He could see Brendon commanding the floor the way the lead singer is doing right now.

He drinks his beer, thinks about finding Pete to grab another one, and downs it quickly in one long gulp.

“I’m grabbing another beer!” Ryan yells in Brendon’s ear.

“Yeah, don’t forget mine this time!”

Ryan shoots him a thumbs up as a promise to remember and heads towards the bar. To his delight, there is Pete, leaning against the bar and looking on with a smile tugging the corners of his lips.

“Enjoying the show?” Pete asks.

“Yeah, they’re really good,” Ryan breathes out.

The bartender notices Ryan now that he’s talking to Pete and hands Ryan another beer without asking. He forgets to ask for another one for Brendon again. Instead, he leans back on the bar next to Pete, mirrors his stance, and sips his beer. Pete’s not drinking anymore. Ryan wants to ask him about it but then the music stops as the band shifts into a slow song.

Pete pats his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He gestures the open pack at Ryan like a question and Ryan nods. He follows him out the door and around the side of the building. The air outside is dry and a desert wind wafts by that Ryan can blame for the shiver his body expels when Pete hands him a cigarette.

Ryan’s tried smoking a few times but he never committed to being a smoker. He reconsiders as he leans on the wall next to Pete and inhales.

“So, 22, huh?”

“Seventeen,” Ryan admits.

Pete chuckles and shakes his head. “Man, to be seventeen again. Don’t grow up, kid. You’ll get to be my age and wish every day that you could be seventeen.”

“Dude, how old are you?”

“24,” Pete says around his cigarette. It doesn’t sound old at all but Ryan can see circles around those bright eyes that he himself has yet to acquire.

The song changes and they can feel it vibrate the walls they lean on. It’s heavy and fast and Ryan thinks about going back in to hear it better.

“They sound good tonight,” Pete says. “Their album is gonna be great.”

“Are you, like, their manager?” Ryan asks. Pete smiles, all wolf’s teeth and hungry.

“Something like that. They’re old friends from home.”

“And where’s home?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Pete says.

Ryan shrugs. “Just making conversation.” It comes out more confident than he truly feels.

“So, make some conversation,” and it sounds like a dare.

Ryan opens his mouth and shuts it and Pete laughs at him but doesn’t walk away or tease him any further. He answers Ryan’s question about home (Chicago) and what he’s doing in Vegas (“they invited me and I had nothing else to do”).

Pete tells Ryan more about his life, and Ryan listens, eagerly. He smokes the next cigarette Pete hands him and ignores feeling lightheaded by the first one. Pete writes lyrics and poetry too. He plays the bass and he’s bounced around a few hardcore bands in Chicago but nothing ever came out of it. He thinks The Academy Is… can make it, though. They’re good guys and they’re talented as fuck.

Ryan in turn tells Pete about his band and his lyrics and their plans to get a demo together. Pete says something about knowing a guy and he’d be happy to pass it along. Ryan beams, absolutely shines, at the notion. Pete asks for Ryan’s phone to put his number in there and sends himself a text at the same time to make sure he has it. They talk Myspace and LiveJournal and trade usernames to keep in touch with each other’s writing. Ryan feels connected to Pete in a strange way; this older guy who bought him a beer and shared his cigarettes with him, with his eyes that sparkle in a manner Ryan’s never seen in anyone else. He’s expressive and he laughs at everything. If Ryan were a different kind of guy, this would be a different kind of night.

He sees Brendon peer out the door, wide eyes searching around the sides of the building, presumably for Ryan. Ryan ducks his head and Pete’s eyebrows knit together in question.

Brendon catches him anyway and yells, nearly tripping over his feet to the side wall. 

“Dude! What the fuck you missed, like, half the show!”

“Friend of yours?” Pete asks. Ryan nods and rolls his eyes, leaving Pete to meet Brendon halfway.

Brendon doesn’t look pissed but concerned and he looks over Ryan’s shoulder to see Pete. Ryan feels like he should facilitate introductions. He doesn’t and let’s Brendon drag him back to the throng of people pouring out of the doors.

“Hey, Ryan! Call me if you’re ever in Chicago!” Pete calls out.

Ryan will call him. Ryan will call him while he’s in Vegas and Pete will call him while he’s somewhere else.

And if he missed the cool, blonde girl who drove from California to Nevada to meet him at the show, he’ll never know for sure. Jac never texts him again and Ryan forgets all about her.


	4. I'm Damaged Bad at Best

_Winter 2004_

Seasons don’t change in Nevada. The weather goes from cool to warm to hot to miserable and back down the scale it goes. Leaves don’t change into shades of red and orange, nor do they fall to the ground. Palm trees stay green month over month and year over year. It rarely rains and Ryan’s never seen the snow. If it weren’t for the lawn decorations on the neighbor’s yard, there would be no sign of Christmas to come.

Sometimes Ryan dreams about a coast he’s never lived in. He thinks about the northeast with its rocky coastlines and chilly winters, sea spray mixed with snow in his hair.

He would live in a cottage covered in vines, just a walk to the shoreline. It’d be dark and stormy, even in the summer. Perpetual clouds hang just above his roof. He’d have a room devoted to music – playing it, writing it, listening to it – all the instruments and albums he could possibly want at his disposal. There’s a fireplace in the living room that burns at all hours and heats the cottage. There’s one of those dead animal rugs in front of it. Maybe a moose head on the wall just above the hearth. Maybe he lives in a cabin instead, with a calming lake in the backyard that stays illuminated by the moon. The stars twinkle above and are reflected like glass over the frozen water behind him. He spends his time writing on his porch inspired by the sky and the sea (so he guesses he does live by the sea, in these fantasies). He writes down all of the things that he wants to scream into the void and puts them to music. The music is always there.

Outside his bedroom window he only sees the palm trees but at least the temperature is dropping. He pulls his arms into his sweatshirt and feels his body warm.

They never made it to the studio over the summer. They drank and played sloppy tunes in Spencer’s garage. They laughed a lot. Brent’s a funny guy on his own but pair him up with Spencer and they could take that show on the road. Make more money than the music would make them. But the music isn’t about the money anyway.

Ryan’s dad is in the hospital again. Ryan doesn’t want to talk about it.

His dad bought him a digital camera for Christmas. Ginger got him the sweatshirt he’s wearing. He looks down at it and smiles for the first time since the twenty-fifth. She offered for him to stay at her house until things got back to normal. But this isn’t abnormal, Ryan thinks to himself sadly. Plus, she’s been over every day since, and Spencer sends him texts saying things like “just checking in!” and inviting him to jam in the garage or play video games. He’s shown up a few times too to bring pizza and soda and sit on the couch. They’ve been watching a lot of _Viva La Bam_ on MTV. Ginger bought him groceries after dropping Ryan off at home from the hospital so his fridge is stocked and he can cook up a mean egg so he’s doing okay. She made sure to get him Gushers. Spencer’s eaten half of them already.

It wasn’t a bad Christmas, all things considered. Things were alright for the most part. No one said anything they would regret or made anyone yell across the table. They ate Chinese food and opened presents and watched _The Grinch_ and Ryan got to play his guitar and his dad told him he sounded pretty good on that thing.

Ryan’s fingers itch for something. He grabs his keys and throws on his Vans to head out to the Corner Store by the park to buy a pack of cigarettes. He started smoking this summer after the show, started buying them after he turned eighteen. His dad didn’t say anything if he noticed but Ryan didn’t necessarily hide it.

He opens the door to see Brendon standing there.

“Uh, hey.”

Brendon’s got his hands stuffed in his hoodie pocket, shuffling back and forth because he just can’t keep still. He’s smiling at Ryan, looks relieved to find him there, and Ryan wonders where else he would be right now if not at home.

“Hey,” Brendon repeats.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks.

Brendon stops shuffling and toes the ground with his sneaker. He shrugs. “Heard about your dad,” he says. “You doin’ alright?”

Ryan steps out and shuts the door behind him. Brendon side steps to let him through and doesn’t say anything when Ryan starts walking down the block.

“Where are we going?” Brendon asks.

“Corner Store,” Ryan says.

“Cool,” Brendon replies.

They don’t talk the whole walk there. It’s only five minutes up the street but the silence is comfortable. It’s nice, Ryan thinks, to just have some company. Not that he was lonely in the house by himself, but it’s better to be with someone than without.

Brendon’s humming because he has to do something. Ryan wants to ask him if he’ll sing instead. He doesn’t have to ask though, because Brendon’s voice comes out barely above a whisper, singing The Killers’ “Everything Will Be Alright.” It’s a good song, a little too obvious for the moment, except for the “dreaming ‘bout those dreamy eyes” bit, but it sounds better coming from Brendon. A rock band out of Vegas telling him over and over again: everything will be alright. Sure, it will. They had listened to that album over the summer and the beginning of senior year. Something about a group of 4 guys from Ryan’s hometown making it big – the world recognizing that there’s more to Las Vegas than slot machines and fancy hotels – it brought a sense of optimism that Ryan didn’t think he would ever find here.

Ryan buys himself a pack of cigarettes and one of those Starbucks coffee drinks for Brendon as a thank you for taking the walk with him. They head back home and pass by the park they hung out at the first night they met and so many nights since. Ryan veers left and Brendon follows. They both take a seat on the swing set and Brendon starts swinging, pumping his legs to propel him higher. Ryan just kind of sits there and lights a cigarette.

“You didn’t have to come check on me, you know,” he says.

“Wasn’t really,” Brendon says, still swinging.

“So, why’d you walk over?”

“Got bored. You’re my friend. Figured you’d be bored too.”

Ryan smirks behind his cigarette. “Yeah? That’s it?”

There’s something Brendon doesn’t want to talk about. Ryan can tell; Brendon always wants to talk but tonight he’s actively avoiding talking about something. That bodes well enough for Ryan, who also doesn’t want to talk about some things.

“I wrote something,” he says.

“You like it?” Brendon asks.

“Yeah, man. I really do. It’s…cathartic, I guess.” He stubs his cigarette in the ground beneath his feet and pushes himself to swing, just a little bit.

Brendon slows down his swinging a bit as the energy drains out of him. He was pushing his legs with a purpose, like a bird pre-flight, but now he winds himself down to match Ryan’s level.

“If you like it, I like it,” he says simply.

Ryan smiles. “Sometimes I think you’re the only one who still believes in us.”

Brendon stops completely. He turns the swing towards Ryan and Ryan turns himself. Brendon’s eyes are dreamy and inspiring. He gazes at Ryan with an innocence Ryan’s never noticed before. His hand moves from the chain of the swing to Ryan’s hand, dead still in his own lap, and he nudges a pinky over Ryan’s knuckles. Ryan’s skin rises at the touch.

“I believe in you,” Brendon says.

Ryan swallows a lump in his throat. He’s still looking into Brendon’s eyes and he needs Brendon to look away first. Please, please look away first. Ryan’s body will betray him and he will add gasoline to the inferno that his life has become unless Brendon takes those brown eyes somewhere else.

A wind comes through, gentle but chill, and moves their swings back and forth, untwists them from their sideways positions. Ryan feels like he can finally breathe without Brendon’s eyes on his.

“Can we call it a night?” Ryan asks. He’s looking down at his hands clasped in his lap and he can only imagine the pitiful picture his posture paints.

“I’m gonna swing for a bit,” Brendon says. “But yeah, no, like…you don’t have to stay.”

Ryan hops of the swing and dust himself off. “Practice tomorrow?” he asks.

Brendon looks up and grins. “Yeah?” Ryan nods. “Fuck, yeah.”

He leaves Brendon to swing and can hear him laughing to no one but himself as he kicks his legs and gets higher and higher.

*

Ginger picks up Ryan to discharge his dad from the hospital two days later. He smells like death and looks like shit and doesn’t talk to Ryan until New Year’s Eve.

That’s okay with Ryan. They don’t have anything to talk about anyway.


	5. I Notice Nothing Makes You Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group is graduating high school so Brent, of course, throws a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just popping in to say thanks to anyone who has been reading this. This particular chapter is my favorite chapter in the entire fic (so far - we have just about another 15k of this currently written and still going) so I truly hope anyone who pops in or has gotten to this far (again, like, who the hell do I think I am writing a 30k+ Ryden fic in the year of our Lord 2020 holy shit) enjoys this as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

Ryan lost his virginity a week before his eighteenth birthday. Her name was Marissa and she was a blonde who went to school with Brent and Brendon. Brendon introduced them in Brent’s backyard during one of his many summer parties. Marissa had run up to Brendon and hugged him tightly after telling him just how much she missed him that summer. Ryan watched them chat like best pals and he wasn’t jealous so much as curious to the true nature of their relationship.

Even when Trevor brought the girls to the garage, they never really stayed. Eventually they all grew bored of some dorky kids making some alright noise. But Brendon couldn’t keep the girls away long enough. Blondes, brunettes, the occasional brightly colored bird in teal or orange – they all fluffed their feathers and hung on Brendon’s arms and waist. A hug that looked more like a viper grip than a soft embrace. A lingering touch down Brendon’s forearm. Playing with his dark hair and cooing “seriously, you have the _softest_ hair of any guy” while they giggled.

Marissa had run her hands up and down Brendon’s arms after they broke apart. Brendon threw a friendly arm over her petite shoulders as they walked up to Ryan and Spencer. She had hazel eyes, little flecks of gold and green floating in her irises. Freckles from the summer sun decorated her shoulders and just faintly kissed the bridge of her nose. She looked so tiny next to Brendon – she couldn’t have been much taller than 5 feet. She was cute. Ryan liked cute.

Brendon passed through the introductions and smirked at Ryan from behind Marissa. He offered to grab them each a drink – not caring that they both had drinks in their hands already – and slipped away after that. Spencer made an excuse to check out Haley, his crush since the ninth grade, sitting alone by the unlit fire pit. The pair were left alone to drink and make awkward small talk about school starting and senior year and college plans.

Two drinks after that and Ryan was stuffing his long limbs into the passenger side of her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee. He moved the seat all the way back, reclined it as far as he could until he was almost flat. All the windows rolled up made it so warm that Ryan was sweating into the leather seat before anything had even happened.

She settled her thighs around his hips and he could feel her, warm and wet and squeezing around him. She moved as best as she could with the awkward angle, her petite frame stopping her from hitting the top of her head. Ryan grabbed her hips and pressed hard enough to bruise her with each thrust. He didn’t think she cared. If she did, she never said anything. She didn’t show it; she didn’t show anything other than how much she was enjoying this, almost as much as he was.

She let him kiss her hard when he came, holding on to her hips as steady as he could. She rolled off of him into the driver’s seat soon after, panting from exertion and laughing a bit.

“First time in a car?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but Ryan still didn’t feel like he was telling her the truth. At least not the whole truth, anyway. “You?”

She nodded and laughed again. Her admission made Ryan feel a bit better about it.

“Not too bad,” she said.

“A little tight,” Ryan said.

Marissa laughed out loud. “Only a little?”

Ryan smiled. He liked her.

She crawled over him to grab her bikini bottoms from underneath his feet. Ryan idly wondered how clean her car was to be putting those on again. She didn’t. She stuffed them in the pocket of her denim mini skirt. Ryan leaned over to kiss her again, this time a little less demanding, a bit more thankful. Marissa reciprocated, kissing him back softly.

“We should get back to the party,” Marissa said against Ryan’s lips.

Ryan nodded but kissed her again. He boldly moved his hand back to her thigh where he had grabbed and kneaded just minutes before. His hand crept up and up and Marissa grabbed it before he could slide his fingers into her.

“Come on,” she whined. “Let’s get back.”

Ryan nodded and let her unlock the car door to exit. Ryan didn’t look in the mirror before he stepped out himself, but he didn’t think he had anything to hide. He wanted to grab Marissa’s hand and walk back through the yard with her on his arm to show everyone what they had done.

He didn’t see her after that; it was just as well. He did write a song about her after hearing she had hooked up with Trevor that same summer. So, she served multiple purposes, in the end.

*

Halfway through the school year, just as soon as Winter Break ends, Ryan gets the acceptance letter from UNLV that comes with a full scholarship that covers tuition as well as room and board (on-campus housing is a requirement for all incoming freshmen, so it’d be a pretty dick move to not cover that portion, Ryan thinks). It’s not an Ivy League university, and if Ryan had to pay out of pocket the first year, he’d find a way to make it work. But the gesture is nice.

Ryan’s dad tells him he doesn’t have a choice now. “Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth,” he tells his son.

Lots of kids more deserving than him would kill for the opportunity to go to college for free. They have an alright creative writing program and if he’s going for free, he might as well study something he cares about instead of the general higher education Bachelor of Science in Bull Shit half of his graduating class will be getting. Plus, the brand-new concrete roof over his head, the hot, ready-made food in the dining hall, the stability of it all. It’s enticing enough to just get out of here without the risk.

Why, then, does he want to turn it down?

He calls Pete, of all his friends, to tell him to take the fucking scholarship and start a new band in college. Because that’s the reason, isn’t it? The band?

“You’re always saying Brent sucks anyway,” Pete tells him over the phone.

Pete’s packing up his apartment in Chicago to move to New York with Mikey and Mikey’s brother and Mikey’s brother’s partner of sorts and it all sounds like the kind of take-off-and-go-adventure that Pete thrives on. Ryan can hear Mikey pulling the packing tape and stuffing boxes in the background.

“Yeah, but Brendon doesn’t suck. And neither does Spencer,” Ryan says.

Pete sighs. “I know, dude. But it’s not like you’re going to a place they can’t follow. You’re still gonna be in Vegas, you’ll still see them, you’ll still jam. And if you find other people who can jam with you, then that’s not a bad thing either, man.”

Ryan can’t tell if Pete’s words are comforting or not.

“Take the scholarship. You can always drop out and move to New York with me and Mikey.”

Ryan laughs at the idea. “Yeah, well. One day I may take you up on that.”

“My couch is yours to crash on any day,” Pete says. In the background, Ryan hears what sounds like a dish shattering to the ground and a distant “fuck” following it. “Speaking of crashes, pretty sure Mikey just dropped the box with all of our fucking plates in it. Let me go, dude. We’ll talk again soon. Here if you need me.”

“Yeah, you too,” but Pete doesn’t need Ryan when he has Mikey. He still means it when he says it, though.

*

He tells Spencer first. Spencer tells Ginger, and Ginger cries because she holds the unofficial title of Ryan’s mom. She offers to throw him a party which Ryan declines. Spencer says, “No use in fighting it, dude, she’s just gonna put something together anyway” so he relents a little and tells Ginger she can do a dinner or something.

She cooks for an army and brings all the food to Ryan’s house instead of inviting Ryan and his dad over. It’s different, a little weird – she only brings over food when Ryan has no way of procuring his own – but Ryan settles into the weirdness quicker than he expected. It feels kind of nice.

Someone (probably Spencer) invites Brendon and Brent over to eat with them. Brendon looks nicer than he normally does in what Ryan recognizes as his church clothes which means he must have told his mom he was coming. He’s all polite in front of the parents, his spine straight and shoulders back like the good Mormon boy he promised his mom he would be tonight. Ryan’s stomach flips at the sight of him.

Ryan’s dad gives all the boys beers after dinner in their garage in a way that seems way too normal and familial. His dad doesn’t even know Brendon more than a passing glance, but he still puts a fatherly hand on Brendon’s shoulder and pats it when Brendon takes the beer with a hesitant grasp.

It should feel weirder than it does. The whole night should have been awkward but it’s the most comfortable Ryan’s felt in a long time.

Eventually his dad leaves the boys to help Ginger clean up the kitchen and store the leftovers. They sit in Ryan’s garage and help themselves to another beer while they’re still able to sneak one in in front of the adults.

“I should have gotten into college years ago,” Ryan mumbles. His friends laugh in agreement.

“Dude, when I told my mom about UT I thought she was gonna have a heart attack. But like, in a really good way,” Brent says.

Ryan’s eyes widen. “UT?”

“Yeah, man, UT Austin. Got the letter last week – that thing was fucking heavy.” Brent laughs at the memory like it’s something funny. 

“I didn’t know you were going out of state,” Spencer says.

Brent waves his hand while he takes a sip of beer. “I mean, I didn’t plan on going. I just like applied and they said yes. My dad graduated from there so he’s like all about it.” There’s a beat of silence where the three pairs of eyes look at Brent with confusion. “Why? Where are you two going?”

“CSN,” Spencer says. “It’s new and it’s cheap. Plus, I can go part-time and still get a 2-year degree.”

“I, uh. I haven’t actually decided,” Brendon says. He looks embarrassed and he hides behind his beer bottle.

Ryan had never thought about any of them actually going to college. Rock stars didn’t go to college. Well, Brian May got his PhD in Astro Physics or some shit but none of them were doctoral candidates, anyway.

He wants to ask them “what about the band” but he looks at his three best friends and realizes that there is no band. Not anymore. There’s no demo, there hasn’t been a show since the summer, and it’s senior year so there won’t be a show until next summer. But by that time, Brent will be moving off to Texas.

“Tell you what though,” Brent announces, “I’m gonna throw a kick-ass grad party. Parents already said I’ll have the house to myself so nothing’s off limits.”

Spencer laughs. “Can’t be more epic than last summer,” he says and throws a wink to Ryan. Ryan rolls his eyes and ignores the sideways look Brendon throws him.

*

It’s no different than any other party Brent’s thrown in the past. The same kids show up for the free booze and open pool. Brent should start charging if he’s going to schlepp all the way to Austin next summer.

If you outright asked him, Ryan would tell you that no, he’s not bitter about it. Not at all. Not when the three of them are staying in Vegas. He’ll find another bass player. Maybe Brendon could fill in. He’ll find another bass player and he’ll find another friend or maybe he won’t. Maybe they could three musketeers this for the rest of their lives. Just Ryan and his two best friends. Three’s company, four is a crowd.

Things have been weird between Ryan and Brent since Easter break. Ryan almost didn’t show up tonight; Spencer had taken some time to convince him. Something about regrets and best friends forever and it all felt a little too sixteen-year-old-girl in the moment, but Spencer made some valid points so here Ryan is, avoiding Brent by nursing his beer on the far-side of the patio. He watches good-looking boys and good-looking girls flirt back and forth in Brent’s pool. Good-looking boys who look like football players and wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Brendon and Brent because the boys who went to Ryan’s high school and looked like that didn’t talk to Ryan and Spencer, that’s for sure. Some of the pretty girls did, and Ryan can see a few of them here already. Haley is here, making big old heart eyes at Spencer. Something happened between them last summer. It’s probably going to happen again tonight.

Brendon sneaks up to Ryan’s side with two red solo cups of something in his hand. He hands one to Ryan who takes it gingerly, sniffs it before taking a sip. It smells like pineapple juice that got spilled in a tanning salon and tastes just about the same. He grimaces but swallows it down.

“How do you like this stuff?” Ryan asks. He takes another sip.

“It gets better the longer the night goes on,” Brendon says. “You look fucking miserable, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan sighs. He hits his head against the stucco siding of Brent’s house and keeps drinking. “I was gonna bail, actually.”

“Spencer told me. Glad you didn’t.”

Brendon takes his arm and throws it around Ryan’s shoulders. He tugs Ryan closer to his side and jostles him a bit before holding him tightly, pressing him close to his side. It looks so friendly and innocent from the outside but Ryan can feel the blood rushing through his veins as he gets close enough to Brendon to smell the Malibu on his breath. It’s gross and it’s hot and Brendon throws his head back in laughter like he’s having the time of his life just hanging on Ryan in the corner of the party. He probably is.

Ryan turns his face into the crook of Brendon’s neck like Brendon will shield him from whatever he wants to avoid at this party. Brendon’s entire body stills; Ryan feels him go rigid before relaxing completely. The arm wrapped around Ryan’s shoulder pulls him even closer, their legs tangled and knees knocking. He takes his hand and rubs up and down Ryan’s arm a few times before settling at the base of Ryan’s neck. It causes an involuntary shudder, goosebumps erupting over Ryan’s skin, and he breathes out against Brendon’s neck shakier than he expected to. He thinks he can hear Brendon groan softly, but it’s drowned out by the noise of the party. The girls in bikinis yell and splash in the pool.

The sound of Spencer’s high-pitched laugh breaks across the yard and Brendon stops again. He loosens his hold on Ryan’s shoulder to let him go but Ryan wants to say hidden in Brendon’s embrace for a few more seconds. Reluctantly, he detaches himself from Brendon’s side and turns back to lean against the house again. He takes a large gulp of Malibu from the red solo cup he had almost forgotten about before turning completely out of Brendon’s hold. He finishes it and maybe Brendon had a point about these tasting better the more you drink them.

“Want another?” Brendon asks. They’re still not looking at each other. Ryan can feel the edges of the world fade around him at the sound of Brendon’s voice and he nods, slowly. He doesn’t want to be left alone. But he wants another drink. Conundrums.

Brendon puts his hand on Ryan’s shoulder before walking away. He wants Ryan to know he’s still there, he’s coming back, and that’s more intimate than any physical touch. Still, it leaves a hidden imprint on Ryan’s skin that tingles with warmth, cooling with every further step Brendon takes.

Ryan moves further away from the party, leans against the fence that keeps them all in, and lights a cigarette. He can hear everyone having so much fun and he wonders what’s broken in him that he’s so bitter and tired at eighteen that he can’t join in the festivities. The party is bursting from the center of the pool outward. No one’s in the house except to grab a drink or two for their friends. All the lights are on illuminating the yard as dusk settles over them. It’s not a bad night for May in Las Vegas, the seasons dancing around that middle ground between hot and miserable before June hits.

He grinds his shoe into his cigarette butt, burying it underground. Brendon’s not back yet with drinks so he decides to go in and find him, hurrying as he side-steps people he’s not friends with.

“Hey watch –“

“Sorry I –“

“Ryan?”

It’s not until he sees Brent in front of him that he realizes he’s been hiding by the edge of his fence all night. He never even told him he was there.

Brent’s double fisting a beer and a red solo cup filled with something to get him drunker than drunk. He raises an eyebrow at Ryan like Ryan’s the one that’s supposed to offer some sort of explanation.

“Did you…just get here?” Brent asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan lies. “Sorry. Didn’t know what to wear.”

It’s a lame excuse. But it’s a Ryan excuse. It’s believable but only just enough.

Brent looks at him puzzled but doesn’t call him out on it. “You need a drink,” he says.

“Yeah, actually I was gonna go grab one,” Ryan tells him.

Brent’s lips are a thin line. “Yeah, you should do that.”

Ryan doesn’t know whether to walk away or press Brent to say what the fuck is on his mind already. They’ve been dancing around bullshit for months and the time has finally come to just lay it all out on the table. God knows it’s all Ryan wants to do. He wants to grab Brent by the shoulders and shake it all out of him, get mean, get violent.

Brent lets him walk past without a word. Ryan feels sick already.

He sees Brendon mixing something up in the kitchen as soon as he walks in. Ryan grabs the cup out of Brendon’s hand before he’s even done. Brendon yells out a “hey!” that Ryan ignores in favor of just gulping down the sickly-sweet rum, making a show of slamming the cup down on the counter when he finishes. Brendon looks at him, stunned and wide-eyed.

“You alright?” he asks. There’s a layer of true concern in his voice.

Brendon puts his hands on Ryan’s arms again, lightly rubbing up and down, smoothing him out. He doesn’t want to smooth out. He wants to crumple right there on the floor of the Wilson’s kitchen.

Brendon’s eyes scan the house quickly. He drops his arms to grab Ryan’s wrist and pulls. “Come over here,” he whispers as he tugs Ryan towards the hallway.

They end up in Brent’s bedroom. Ryan sits on the edge of the bed while Brendon stands with his back pressed against the door. Ryan can’t hear the party in here. Maybe the faint thump of the bass coming from the yard. It takes him back to that summer when things were alright and he shared a cigarette with Pete against the walls of Revolution.

Brendon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dude, what is wrong with you tonight?”

Ryan shifts. “That’s a loaded question.”

“Come on, man, I’m just trying to help. Don’t get how you get.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“You know! All fucking moody and shit! I hate that!”

“Oh, you hate that? Then what the fuck are you even doing here? There’s a whole pool filled with chicks you could be swimming with!”

“That’s not even fucking-ugh! That! That is what you do! You make people feel bad for you because you want the sympathy and then you act like a dick as soon as you get!”

“That’s not even close to the truth. I don’t want – or need – anyone’s fucking sympathy.”

“No, of course not, because you’re _not_ a walking fucking tragedy.”

“Oh my _God_ , Brendon.”

“What!?”

Ryan doesn’t remember getting up from the bed. He must have stepped forward with every traded insult until he had crowded Brendon against the door like a caged animal. Brendon’s eyes are wide, his lips are shiny and they look inviting and Ryan’s head swims with an aching want that he can no longer ignore.

He places his palms on either side of Brendon’s head, flat against the wood door. Brendon lets out a gasp. It’s soft and sounds more nervous than angry (and he won’t be angry, right? There’s no turning back from this so Ryan hopes against everything that no matter what the reaction is, it won’t be anger).

Brendon’s eyes close before their lips even connect. He tips his head back and up just a bit so Ryan can get the right angle. Ryan moves forward and his breath hitches before he finally places his lips on top of Brendon’s.

Brendon kisses like he does everything else – all energy and movement. He parts his lips almost immediately, asking for permission from Ryan to deepen it. Ryan presses their lips a little harder before he gives Brendon what he’s asking for. Brendon grabs Ryan’s hips and pulls them flush into his, another question. Ryan’s hands are still stuck to the door so he moves them to Brendon’s neck, one coming up to hold his jaw.

It’s dizzying and maddening, this experimental make out session. Ryan needs to stop to breathe and think but how can he think about anything other than Brendon’s body beneath him, his lips against his, his tongue exploring his mouth, his hands gripping his hips.

They slow down, teenage hormones neglected. Ryan is breathing hard through his nose like he just ran a marathon. Brendon’s eyes are wide, pupils blown and lips swollen, and that’s all Ryan’s doing. It makes him want to dive in for more but he holds back. He closes his eyes, leans his forehead against Brendon’s, sighs against his lips and kisses them one more time. Brendon kisses back, a little desperate but in no hurry. It’s so different than Ryan had imagined it being. A good different.

“We should get back to the party,” Brendon says. He kisses Ryan again.

“Mhm, sure we should,” Ryan mumbles.

Brendon delivers that beautiful smile that’s been plaguing Ryan’s dreams since the night they met. Ryan feels his body melt. He’s proud to be the reason for that smile tonight.

Last summer, he wanted to grab Marissa’s hand and float through the party like he won the grand prize. He wanted everyone to know what he had done and who he had done it with. Tonight, his body buzzes with the knowledge that no one here knows what they did. It only belongs to the two of them. The whole of tonight is just for them.


	6. I'll Be Your Sinner in Secret

“Making out” doesn’t seem to fit what they do properly; it’s not substantial enough. It doesn’t convey the thrill, the fire, the infinite beauty in what happens when Brendon’s lips connect with Ryan’s.

Sometimes they touch each other with purposeful, deft hands. They roam each other’s bodies with the intention of soliciting moans of encouragement. They egg each other on, who will break first, who will cave to the other’s touch. Brendon’s body is expressive and reactive. He moves his hips or tilts his head until Ryan catches the right angle to expel a breathy moan from him. Brendon in his bed, messy hair and gentle, half-lidded eyes, open mouthed and panting. It’s more exquisite than the images he’s held, half-formed and underdeveloped, in the jar that lives in his brain. The jar he told himself to never open. The jar that spilled out and consumed every thought since the first night.

Other times, they’re lazy and hapless. Sloppy presses of lips to lips, lips to neck, lips to collar bone. No marks, no rush, no grind. Just slow and idle. Their hips may roll or their hands may squeeze but nothing more. Brendon will run his hand up and down Ryan’s spine, slipping his fingers underneath Ryan’s thin t-shirt, in a way that’s both comforting and causes Ryan’s back to arch in pleasure.

But they haven’t gone further than that. At least not yet.

They both want to, even if they haven’t verbally said “I want to” yet. Ryan can feel it, his own aching need when Brendon rolls on top of him with Ryan’s face in his hands and, their tongues dancing around each other in a centuries’ old ritual. He can tell Brendon wants it when Ryan bucks up beneath him and they both shiver with the anticipation of desire.

It’s June and it’s hot enough to avoid the outdoors all together. They hide in Ryan’s room with the door closed and the air conditioner blowing. They roll on top of Ryan’s sheets and avoid the text messages from their friends asking where they are and why they aren’t coming over.

It’s the summer before the end of it all. They stand suspended between the last few pages of a book Ryan never wants to put down. He only wants to keep kissing until his lips are bruised, until they fall off, until the stars fall from the sky and the mountains crumble. He only wants to stay in his bedroom with Brendon tucked into his side.

This is where they’re the safest. No one to answer to or question them. They’re just kissing. And kissing is wonderful.

*

Brent takes a trip to Austin in the middle of June to check in for orientation. He promises he’ll be back before school officially starts. Ryan does not care.

Spencer and Brendon are over, drinking beers in Ryan’s garage. Brendon’s had a few drinks so he’s attempting to skateboard from one edge of the garage to the other. He’s gotten better over the years, but he still looks wobbly. He’s a goofball, Ryan thinks. A weird little goofball who likes it when Ryan kisses right behind his ear.

“You’re far away again, man,” Spencer says. Ryan frowns.

“Nah, I’m right here,” he lies.

“You’ve been weird since graduation. I feel like I didn’t even see you at Brent’s the other night. Even Brent said something about it.”

Ryan’s ears perk up. “What? What’d he say?”

Spencer rolls his eyes, but his cheeks start to blush. “Nothing, man. Just like. Stuff.”

Spencer’s always been a bad liar and an even worse secret keeper. When they were kids, Spencer would always be the first to break in front of his parents with an admission of guilt. A few times he admitted to things that he didn’t even do, taking the fall for Ryan’s bad behavior. And while Ryan always appreciated the loyalty, he would have definitely preferred no one getting caught at all.

“Spit it out,” Ryan says. He hears Brendon abruptly stop skating, kicking the board up and coming back over to sit by Ryan and Spencer to hear what’s going on.

“He just, like, said you were acting like a bitch recently and he was glad he was leaving. Or something.”

It’s just what Ryan needs to hear.

He’s not as mad as he thought he would be. In his heart, he always knew that Brent didn’t give a fuck. Not about the band, not about Ryan, not about anyone but his fucking self. He didn’t have dreams like Ryan and Brendon and Spencer did. He wasn’t loyal. He had no sense of adventure. He’s going to travel to Austin and he’ll be back in four years with only a useless degree to show for it. He’ll make friends – he’s a funny enough guy, that’s how he and Ryan became friends in the first place – but those friends will never push him to be better. Those friends will never support him the way Ryan will. Would have.

“Wait, where are you going, Ryan?” Spencer asks.

Ryan holds a hand up and walks through the garage door into his house. He heads into his room and hops on Myspace. He ignores the friend requests and picture comments and posts a bulletin: Bassist Wanted.

*

They never discuss what’s going on between them. They don’t put a name to it so nothing is actually solidified by a title. Just the thought of having that discussion makes Ryan’s neck hurt, a knot forming at the top of his spine. Why do they have to label it anyway? Who does it benefit? No one but them knows what’s happening anyway. So, there’s no point.

At least, that’s what he tells Pete.

Pete’s all moved in and his apartment sounds terrifying most nights. There’s typically some sort of screaming or banging. A few times Ryan has heard clanging which is a distinct, separate sound from the aforementioned banging. Ryan imagines Pete lives in some haunted carnival fun house based on the various cacophony in the background. Tonight, it’s different. It’s eerily silent in the background except for Pete’s breathing mixed with the inhaling and exhaling of cigarette smoke through the phone.

“Do you want my honest opinion?” Pete asks.

“I mean, yeah. I always want your honest opinion. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know, kid.”

Pete sucks on his cigarette again. “The ‘what are we’ conversation is never fun to have. But you have to have it. You’re not doing either of you any favors by dancing around it. And I know, it’s fun to sneak around, but…someone always gets hurt. In the end.”

“I’m not gonna hurt him,” Ryan says. He cringes at how defensive his voice sounds.

“Who says it’s gonna be you?”

Ryan laughs, lightly. “It’s not like that. I mean, _he’s_ not like that.”

“No one starts off like that, Ryan. But situations change people. You let this situation get out of control and fester and people may surprise you.”

Pete sounds exhausted. Ryan remembers this time difference and feels the guilt pool in his stomach.

“I’m sorry to bother you with my shit,” Ryan whispers into the phone. “I just didn’t have anyone else to talk to.”

“What about Spencer?”

“That conversation is going to be even harder to have,” Ryan says.

“Nah, don’t even say that. Spencer’s like your brother, dude.”

Ryan can practically see Pete’s toothy grin through the phone as he talks. It makes Ryan smile, despite himself.

His phone buzzes, pressed tightly against his ear. He pulls it away to look at the message blip coming through the screen but he doesn’t open it. Then another buzz, followed by another, and another. Ryan furrows his brow in confusion, still debating if he should open it.

Then an incoming call. Brent.

“Hey, uh, Pete, I gotta go I’m getting another call,” Ryan rushes out.

“Alright. Just, uh…just keep me posted, will you? Remember what I said?”

“I will,” Ryan promises, and he hangs up with Pete before Pete even has the chance to say goodbye.

The phone is still ringing with Brent’s name on the screen. Ryan takes a slow and even breath. He answers.

“Hey,” which sounds lames and uninspired. Ryan thought he’d have something better to say when Brent finally called.

“What the fuck, Ryan!?”

So. He must have heard the news.

“You kicked me out of the band without even fucking telling me!?”

Ryan groans. “Come on, Brent –“

“No! What the fuck, Ryan, we’re supposed to be friends –“

“We _are_ , dude,” and it’s such a big lie that Ryan doesn’t even recognize his own voice.

There’s a dead silence on the other end that makes Ryan wonder (or hope, rather) if the call dropped. He hears Brent sigh through the phone speaker.

“You know, I thought this was our band,” Brent begins. “Like, we were gonna do this together. It was supposed to be the four of us and now what? Brendon’s playing the bass now? How’s this plan of yours work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a plan. I did have one, but then you decided to move to fucking Texas and –“

“So, if I stayed in Vegas, you’d keep me in?”

“What, like that’s actually on the table?”

Ryan never thought Brent gave enough of a shit about anyone other than himself to sacrifice his future for the sake of the band. For the sake of their friendship. For anything, really. But it doesn’t matter. Even if he stayed here nothing would change. He’d find a reason to get out of practice early or not show up at all. He’d ditch the three of them in favor of alcohol and some skinny brunette with her legs wrapped around him.

“You never cared about the band,” Ryan says softly. “This wasn’t your dream, man. This wasn’t something you wanted to fight for until now. And now it’s too late and I’m sorry but the decision is final.”

“And you all came to this decision? Unanimously?”

“I don’t know what you’re fucking implying there,” Ryan spits.

“You know what? Fuck you, Ryan. Take your fucking band and shove it up your fucking ass. Stay here in Vegas and fucking die here, dude, we’re done.”

Even after Brent hangs up, his words are left suspended in the stale air of Ryan’s bedroom. He has three texts from Brendon and one text from Spencer that he doesn’t want to read yet.

He doesn’t feel half as bad as he should feel about it all. He sleeps well that night.


	7. I Got the Good Side of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celebrating anniversaries and awkward first times.

Ryan’s roommate is a shy kid named Justin who goes home every weekend. He has thick glasses and a buzz cut and he doesn’t put up a single poster on his side of the dorm – a contrast to the myriad of posters that litter Ryan’s side. He had to do something about that white painted brick wall. It was unsettling when Ryan had moved in. Two cots, two desks, and a window. Ryan knew the place was temporary but even so, it felt void of personality or history. And the white painted brick wall didn’t help.

Justin is a chem major and spends most of his time at the library. They don’t talk much and that’s okay. Brendon talks enough for the entire room when he comes over. He lays on Ryan’s bed and just starts talking, waving his hands in the air and bouncing on Ryan’s bed with his enthusiasm for the mundane. At a certain point, it will drive Justin out of the room. He’ll slam his laptop shut and toss it into his backpack carelessly, speeding out of there to race to the library for some peace and quiet.

When Justin leaves, Ryan locks the door behind him. Brendon gazes up at him from the bed with a fire in his eyes that still causes Ryan’s breath to catch in his throat. His hair got longer over the summer and it looks so good on him, even better after Ryan runs his fingers through it and tugs while Brendon is on his knees. He’s beautiful even on his worst days but no less than stunning with his wide eyes, messed hair, and swollen lips.

There’s no one on campus that Ryan has run into from his or Brendon’s high school which affords them a sense of freedom they didn’t know they wanted. Brendon grabbed Ryan’s hand and laced their fingers together last week on a walk to grab coffee and Ryan let him. He even grabbed Brendon’s hand himself on their walk back just to see that shy smile appear. They sat on one of the benches in the breezeway and drank coffee and talked about nothing and when Brendon laid his head on Ryan’s shoulder, Ryan leaned into it.

Sometimes, Brendon brings Spencer. They both go to CSN and come up to visit together when they get a break between work and classes. Spencer took a job part-time as a server and he’s terrible at it, according to Brendon who’s seen him at work. There are moments Ryan watches the two of them joke about things and he feels left out. The distance isn’t too far but the time away stings just a bit when they talk about things they’ve done, just the two of them. But there are other times, like when the three of them are listening to music as loud as possible from Ryan’s laptop speakers, where it feels like nothing has really changed.

It’s the late nights on the weekends, when the dorm is empty and so is Ryan’s cot, that he feels like made a mistake. Not just in coming here and taking the scholarship, but in burning his bridges with Brent, in not pushing himself harder in high school to become the rock star he dreamed of being. He still does, dream of being a rock star. He tells himself this is a steppingstone, though it feels more like purgatory. White painted brick walls and all.

*

He’s taking four classes this semester, just enough to maintain full time student status. He has a poetry class that he likes quite a bit, an obligatory math class that he needs to take in order to graduate, Intro to English Lit that he couldn’t test out of, and Intro to Art History.

Originally he had planned to take Philosophy but he dropped it within the first week. The lecture hall was packed, every seat filled, and Ryan had no choice but to sit right in the center of the seats. The professor had a thick accent (French or Swiss or something that Ryan couldn’t understand) and droned on and on that Ryan was lost only 15 minutes in. He had wanted to like Philosophy; he really thought he could deal with his teenage ennui better with some existential thought. But the class was too large, the professor too boring and hard to understand. He needed another elective and Intro to Art History was all that was left.

This class is also in a lecture hall but only a quarter of the seats are filled each class. The professor is a young woman, clearly passionate about her subject. She encourages discussion throughout the hall on the pieces they dissect which makes the class feel lively and inclusive.

On his first day sitting in, the professor had posed some wonderful questions: what is art and why does it matter? What does it mean to make art for art’s sake? Do we make art for ourselves to release emotion, or for others to perceive their own? Ryan couldn’t draw worth a shit, but he applied those questions to music and when he thought about it, the dizzying effect of his answers made his brain bubble and fizz like the cork pop of a champagne bottle. He wrote them down in a notebook and studied the questions when he got back to the dorm. He wanted to answer them, knowing there was no real answer, which both increased and decreased the pressure to answer them correctly.

The class meets Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00 and Ryan rushes from his Statistics class to make it across campus so he gets a good seat. He usually gets in right on time but today he’s ten minutes early, his Stats professor taking mercy on the class and letting them go before their brains officially began melting out through their ears. He takes in the campus, weather just moving on from being miserable and unbearable, with students out roaming through the breezeway.

He stops in front of the building for Art History to see a group of four guys, two guitarists, one guy with a tambourine, another just enjoying himself. They’re not bad, a little folksy but still rock and roll. It’s a sound he can get behind. One of the guitarists has a pretty okay voice for what he’s playing and his buddy harmonizes with him creating a full sound, complete with the tap of a tambourine for percussion, keeping the beat. There’s no crowd gathering around them, just Ryan standing a few feet away, trying desperately to not look like he’s spying on them.

Pete had told him to go to college and start a new band. He wonders what Brendon’s voice would sound like singing these songs, how he could incorporate his own lyrics into this sound. He hasn’t talked to Spencer about music beyond what they’ve been listening to and the hole in heart expands as he thinks about it.

The band packs up and Ryan takes that as a signal to get to class. He walks into the lecture hall and notices the harmonizing guitarist taking a seat two rows down from him. He looks a bit older than the rest of the class – probably a junior or something, needing another credit to graduate. Or maybe he just likes art. Ryan wonders how he never noticed the guitar perched on the seat next to him before. He must not have brought it to class before now because Ryan would have definitely noticed it.

The professor launches into her lesson for the day and Ryan’s just as engrossed as he is every other class. The guitarist in front of him needles in the back of his brain until the thoughts drown out the lesson and he thinks about talking to him and befriending him. Maybe find a new group of guys to play with for a bit. Maybe start a new band, start a new life.

He daydreams about what this new life would look like and doodles in the margins of his notebook. He could start over completely, slip out of the state of Nevada like a thief in the night. Buy a black cowboy hat and smoke Marlboro Reds and never tell anyone his real name. Guitar on his back, a suitcase in his hand, his boots would have spurs and they’d clink with each step as he hitchhiked through the desert. He’d end up on a coast somewhere and tell everyone his name was Astro Boy or something else fucking insane. He’d play his music to anyone who would listen and so many fucking people would come and listen to him. Not groupies, not real rock star shit, but a following of men and women and young kids who resonated with the words he wrote down. Even now, his doodles morph into words on the page. The Ballad of Astro Boy and his Brown Eyed Lover. Because his lover would come, too. His lover would follow him everywhere.

Class ends and the harmonizing guitarist walks out. They never even exchange glances let alone words. Ryan’s phone buzzes in his pocket and it stops him mid-step to check who it could be. A text from Brendon, waiting outside Ryan’s dorm and actively avoiding Justin. He tells Ryan to come home. “Home” is an interesting concept, Ryan thinks. That dorm isn’t his home so much as it is a place he sleeps and studies in. But he likes the word “home” coming from Brendon. Brendon feels like home.

He rushes back to the dorm from class to find Brendon slumped against the shut door of his shared room. He looks out of sorts in a dress shirt and dark denim and he’s fidgeting because that’s what Brendon does. There’s something behind his back.

“Hi,” Ryan greets. His eyes scan the hallway for proof of life before he pecks Brendon’s lips. Brendon kisses him back but it’s timid and Ryan frowns.

“Justin locked you out?” he asks. Brendon shakes his head. “Then what are you doing outside the door?”

From behind his back, Brendon pulls a single red rose and points it at Ryan. Ryan doesn’t know what emotion he’s supposed to feel but the sight of a rose in Brendon’s hand stirs something beautiful and warm within him.

“Happy 6 months,” Brendon says. His face burns and he lowers the rose down like he immediately regrets everything he just said and did. The flower points to the floor and Ryan grabs Brendon’s hand, plucking the rose from his grasp with his other hand and holding it close to his chest.

“You brought me fucking flowers.”

“Flower,” Brendon corrects.

“You brought me a fucking rose.”

Brendon shrugs. “You like them,” he says. “You always point out the flowers on the breezeway here. And you’re fucking obsessed with the rose bush by the Catholic church. So. Happy anniversary?”

Ryan never spent long enough time with anyone to celebrate any sort of milestone. It’s just as terrifying as it is wonderful and he wants to push Brendon against the door of his dorm room like he did just about six months ago, he estimates.

“How do you know it’s our anniversary?” Ryan asks. “What are you counting from?”

“Uhm. Well, Brent’s, I guess. Why? What would you count down from?”

“No, yeah, that’s. That’s the date,” he agrees.

Brendon’s smile widens and he finally looks like himself, standing in the hallway of Ryan’s dorm.

“So, how else do you want to celebrate?” Ryan asks.

Brendon takes one step closer into Ryan’s orbit and Ryan can smell cologne and fresh shower on his skin. It’s intoxicating.

“I really only had one idea, honestly,” he whispers. Brendon’s hand comes up to grab Ryan’s hip, pulling him in close, his lips coming up to graze his ear as he tells him, “Justin is staying at the library all night. Organic chem test tomorrow.”

Ryan’s throat is dry and he sputters out a cough. “Have you been stalking my roommate’s schedule?”

Brendon’s eyebrow lifts and he smirks his response.

*

It’s still a secret, this thing that they have. Ryan’s not ashamed of what they do and how he feels. Afraid, yes, he’s very afraid. It’s a fragile gift he’s been given, and Ryan’s broken more than his fair share of glass and crystal up until this point. He doesn’t want to risk breaking this, too.

Brendon tried to talk about it before Ryan officially moved into his dorm. It was right after Ryan gave him a blow job for the first time. It was sloppy and awkward and incredibly unsexy. Ryan didn’t even finish him off with his mouth, swapping his hand in when his jaw started to hurt and he realized he didn’t actually know what in the fuck he was doing here. But Brendon had clearly enjoyed it and pulled Ryan up to cuddle against him post-orgasm.

Brendon ran his fingers through Ryan’s hair, massaging his scalp tenderly. Ryan hid his face in the crook of Brendon’s neck, pressing a kiss to his pulse point every now and then while they snuggled together in Ryan’s bed in the early morning.

“Does Spencer know?” Brendon had asked. “Y’know, about us?”

Ryan pulled his head up to look at Brendon’s face. “I mean, I haven’t told him.”

Brendon’s brow furrowed. “You haven’t?”

“No, dude. Have you?”

“No. But like, _you_ haven’t?”

Ryan shook his head, laughing. “I just told you. Why?”

“Just surprised, is all. Thought you two were close,” Brendon mumbled.

“Yeah, we are but like. This isn’t about me. This is about you, too. And like, your family and shit –“

Brendon clucked his tongue, readjusting to sit up higher against the pillows. “Well, don’t worry about that, I mean. My dad’s a bit…whatever…but my mom, you know, she likes you.”

“Yeah, she likes me _now_. She doesn’t know what we’re doing when you come over every morning,” Ryan said. He poked at Brendon’s rib playfully and got the sliver of a smile in return.

“She doesn’t know I’m here at all,” Brendon said. His voice sounded solemn, deeper. Ryan hated that sound from him.

“Yeah, I know.” Ryan wriggled out of Brendon’s side and sat up next to him. Brendon sighed, his head resting on Ryan’s shoulder. “All the more reason to keep it secret, Bren.”

“I wouldn’t, like, if I knew things were going to be alright. I wouldn’t keep it a secret.”

Ryan dropped his head to place a kiss to the top of Brendon’s hair. “I know,” Ryan said. “I wouldn’t either.”

*

The door unlocks only to let them in before Ryan turns to lock them back in. His heart hammers in his chest because Brendon looks like that – feral and anxious, rubbing his palms down the front of his jeans with a cautious eye on Ryan leaning against the door.

Ryan can’t catch his breath yet. Brendon’s stare is a bright flame burning right through Ryan’s skin. He’s bewitching, all nervous energy while his eyes hold that stare, the only thing he can control in that moment. Ryan’s body moves on its own, slow and calculated steps towards the bed. He doesn’t even sit next to Brendon, just grabs his face and connects their lips in a passionate kiss. Brendon kisses back just as wild and Ryan feels his control slip away from him.

His hands shake as he unbuttons Brendon’s shirt. It had looked so nice on him, hugging his chest and arms and Ryan feels a sense of pride that he’s the reason Brendon got dressed up tonight. Brendon could wear rags every single day and Ryan would still want him but the effort and thought behind it is what makes his chest swell. He slips the shirt off of Brendon’s shoulders and Brendon lets him. His arms fall to his sides before coming back to circle Ryan’s waist, pushing their hips together, and lightning surges through Ryan’s body.

They disconnect and Brendon quickly jumps out of his jeans while Ryan lifts his t-shirt over his head, suddenly feeling exposed standing by the bed. His sneakers are still on and he toes those off before unbuttoning his jeans while Brendon bites his lip in anticipation.

They’ve seen each other naked before, in either early morning or dark of night. All of the lights in Ryan’s dorm are on, harsh and unflattering. Ryan wants Brendon to look anywhere but directly at him, a flush starting in his chest and creeping up his neck before burning his cheeks. Ryan looks down at his waist, fumbling with his own zipper, but Brendon’s hands cover his own and Ryan looks up.

Thousands of poets far better and far worse than Ryan have written about the depth of their lover’s eyes but no words could ever capture the mixture of gentleness and want that Brendon reflects back to Ryan in that moment. He helps Ryan out of his jeans and Ryan’s body relaxes into Brendon’s touch, not breaking eye contact until they’re both naked and exposed. Brendon kisses him, kind and tender. His kiss says it’s going to be okay and Ryan believes him. Ryan trusts him with so much already, he can trust Brendon with his body. Brendon won’t break him.

Dorm beds barely fit one person on them but two is a special game of Tetris. They settle with Ryan on his back, Brendon straddling him. Brendon kisses him again, rolling his hips as he does so, and Ryan arches his back at the friction. This is familiar. They’ve done this before. They’ve rutted against each other under the safety net of Ryan’s blankets, traded kisses and moans back and forth between them. Ryan grips Brendon’s hips hard enough to leave fingertip shaped bruises tomorrow when Brendon wraps a hand around Ryan’s cock and starts stroking him. Ryan sucks in a breath and Brendon kisses him again. Those lips bring him back and Ryan opens his mouth so Brendon can truly kiss him with everything he has.

They break apart and Brendon rolls off, fishes for something in his discarded jeans pocket from the floor. Ryan’s breathing hard because he knows what Brendon is looking for and his heart rate picks up once again. He returns with a condom and a bottle of lube and Ryan wants to make a joke about how he could hide that bottle when his jeans are so tight but Brendon is right back to work, kissing and licking and stroking and Ryan slips into the touches once more.

Of course, he’s thought about this. He’s even allowed himself to try a few times when he still lived at home, alone in the shower or lying in bed. But he never imagined he would feel so taken care of as Brendon lubes his own fingers up and enters one inside him. It’s more uncomfortable than anything else and Ryan shifts below him. Brendon shushes him, kisses him, keeps stroking him and Ryan moans when another finger enters him suddenly.

His body writhes with pleasure and suspense. Brendon is whispering in his ear, gently encouraging him to let go. He wonders what he must look like all sprawled out beneath Brendon, the harsh dorm lights on his skin. Brendon looks like a god, a marble statue, and Ryan moves his hand to Brendon’s cock to touch him. He wants Brendon to enjoy this, too. Brendon lets him get a few strokes in before batting Ryan’s hand away.

Brendon slithers down Ryan’s body, pressing kisses to his neck, his chest, his abdomen, and then swallows him down. He enters a third finger and now Ryan feels a stretch and burn breaking through the edges of pleasure. Brendon keeps moving in and out while his head bobs up and down. He continues pressing his fingers into Ryan and he wants to say something but then he feels it – that bolt of lightning that runs up his spine and he moans.

“Oh, _fuck_.”

Brendon stops, moves his fingers again, and Ryan covers his face with his arm to stop himself from unravelling before him. He hits that spot again, watching Ryan intently for that reaction to reappear. He comes up for air, his fingers still working in and out of Ryan.

“Come on,” Brendon whispers. “Show me, show me it feels good.” Ryan groans and removes his arm, freeing his face for Brendon to kiss him hard. Ryan moans against his mouth, a small whine escaping when Brendon lets go to sink back to Ryan’s cock, taking it greedily.

It’s entirely too good, stars bursting behind Ryan’s eyelids as Brendon works him open. Brendon releases Ryan’s cock from his mouth, then exits him entirely. Ryan can hear the wrapper of the condom opening and he knows what is coming next. He braces for it but Brendon kisses him, his lips taste like Ryan, and his head spins.

They both adjust themselves to fit again and Brendon laughs, easing the tension. It’s their first time together, their first time with another man, and it’s all happening on an extra-long twin mattress.

Brendon’s bigger than Ryan is which was never intimidating until this moment, but Ryan knows Brendon is going to take care of him. He knows that if he says stop, Brendon will stop. If he says more, Brendon will give him more. Ryan chokes off a moan when he feels Brendon inside him. He wraps his legs around his waist and Brendon buries himself deeper, his head falling forward and he looks exquisite and so far gone. Ryan urges Brendon to move and he does so, slowly then picking up the pace with each thrust.

It’s not bad but it’s not great. Brendon keeps adjusting himself to find that spot that made Ryan see stars and it’s awkward and uncomfortable, bordering on painful, until he gets there.

“Fuck, _there_ ,” Ryan moans and Brendon takes the instruction, slamming into Ryan to get him to moan like that again.

“Fuck, yes, keep going, baby,” the words tumble from Ryan’s open mouth, and Brendon gives him everything he’s got.

Ryan wraps a hand around his cock and strokes, feeling himself on the edge. Brendon keeps repeating Ryan’s name like a prayer – “Ryan, Ryan, _Ryan_ ” – landing sloppy kisses in between moans until they’re just panting into each other’s mouths. Ryan comes between their stomachs and Brendon slams into him, wild and uninhibited before he comes.

It’s messy and awkward. Ryan feels a dull cramp in his right thigh and Brendon is sweating but smiling lazily above him.

“Wow,” Ryan breathes.

“Yeah, you too,” Brendon whispers back. He nudges Ryan’s nose with his own and they share one more kiss before breaking apart completely.

Ryan props himself on his forearms and looks down at his stomach. He reaches over for his discarded t-shirt and frowns when he feels the tile floor. Ryan’s bed had been pressed up against the far wall but now it was situated in the middle of the room, their clothes underneath it.

“We moved the bed,” Ryan says.

Brendon grins at Ryan like an idiot and realizes that shit, yeah, they did. He laughs hysterically and covers Ryan’s face in kisses punctuated by laughter while he attempts to scoot them both back to the wall.

They clean up and throw their boxers back on before crawling back into bed. Brendon wraps an arm around Ryan, pulls him close. Brendon smells like sex and sweat and Ryan has the disgusting thought of wanting to savor that smell for as long as he can. Brendon plays with Ryan’s hair and they trade whispers in the dark.


	8. I Could Treat You Better But I'm Not That Smart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Ryan's big break.

College is easy once the routine gets itself all figured out. Classes start at these times on these days and Brendon comes over at these other times on these other days and Spencer comes over sometimes with Brendon and sometimes he comes over without. It’s easy to figure it out and it’s easy to pass his classes and avoid his roommate whenever possible.

In his first semester of college, Ryan had managed to fill three composition books with lyrics. Some of them were not good – reminiscent of his time writing about how much school sucked in high school, laughing with Brent about stupid teachers and stupid jocks. Some of them were wonderful, inspired and truthful stories covered with fanciful language like flowers in a garden bed. And others were okay; not bad, not great, not really anything other than words that sounded pretty next to each other in a sequence.

He had been skittish to share them with anyone, opting not to post them on LiveJournal, abandoning the platform entirely as classes gradually progressed. Ryan’s never been the type to shy away from his words. Quite the contrary, he’d always been eager to share and solicit feedback from anyone who would give it. He had always been proud of what he had written no matter the subject matter but some of the lines in those notebooks held a few feelings he wasn’t ready to admit were real yet.

He did, however, share them with Pete.

And Pete loved them.

Pete’s writing had always felt dark to Ryan. Even his love songs were burnt black around the edges, revealing an interesting life that Ryan had never lived, and he wondered if he ever would. Pete told him once: a different life is neither a better nor worse one – they both had lived and that’s what mattered.

“Dude, I really think it’s time,” Pete tells him over the phone one night.

“Time for what?”

“To come out here!” Pete laughs, all bright and tinny into Ryan’s ear.

Ryan laughs too, though he’s not entirely sure why.

“What’s in New York for me?” Ryan asks. “Aside from you –“

“Well, that should be enough right there,” Pete jokes.

“Nah, I’m serious. I’m not even a full year into this college thing, why come out now?”

Ryan can feel Pete’s mood shift even through the phone from light and breezy to heavy, serious. Ryan’s jaw sets itself tense as he waits for what new plan Pete is ready to unveil.

In the years since they met, Pete had concocted dozens of failed ventures in Chicago and New York that never came to fruition. Each one he shared with Ryan and each time Ryan wished him luck. One time he started a clothing line with his friend Travis that never made it passed the design stage. He had a business plan started to buy the empty restaurant down the street from his apartment and flip it into a music venue. When that failed to earn him investments, he planned to open a night club. That didn’t inspire much confidence either and so he opted for a tattoo parlor – a chain, he had hoped. No one wanted to fund that dream either.

“Dude, I got it all figured out,” Pete begins. “You remember my friend, Gabe, right? He was the lead singer of Midtown?”

“Vaguely,” Ryan mumbles.

“Anyway, he’s starting this new band here and we were talking and he was asking me for advice and I just, dude, I fucking know it sounds crazy but I figured with all of the connections we got and everything and all the fucking _talent_ I know. I mean, Christ, you don’t even have an official demo but I’ve heard Brendon sing and these lyrics – what do you have, like, 30? 40 songs?”

“Pete, what are you talking about?” Ryan asks, a tinge of exhaustion in his voice.

“I’m starting a label, Ryan.”

“A _what_ label?”

Pete laughs again and it reminds him of the night they met. “A record label.”

Ryan goes still. His mouth suddenly dry like those words sucked all the living energy from his body.

“Bull shit,” Ryan says.

“No bull shit, dude. Gabe’s helping me get connected with like, investors and shit. I got Travie on board, my buddy Patrick from Chicago. I’m gonna officially sign The Academy Is… because why the fuck not, right?”

Ryan’s breath catches in his throat and he sputters a dry cough through the speaker. “Are you – are you _signing_ me?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, man! It’s time to get out here! Call up Brendon and Spencer – I got a bassist for you already if Brendon’s not up for it. His name is Jon, he’s a good guy, you two will really hit off. He’s coming out here next weekend.”

Ryan falls to the edge of his mattress, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. He looks down at his knobby, denim clad knees and just stares. Here was his dream, finally in arm’s reach. He lets Pete continue to share the plans for his record label – his _record label_ – while keeping his gaze focused downward. Pete really believes in him, that’s the craziest part. Pete with all of his talent and his friends who were real musicians that played real shows and made real, tangible music that showed up on iTunes charts with accompanying music videos. That guy thinks Ryan has something special enough to be signed. Some guy he met at a club in the desert and bought him a beer, underage, was really about to change his life.

“When’s your break?” Pete asks and breaks Ryan’s reverie.

“What break? Like winter break?”

“Yeah, Christmas or whatever. You got mid-terms, right?”

“My last one is next Tuesday and then break starts officially the Monday after.”

“You’re flying out here Tuesday night. You and the other guys. Please, Ryan, you gotta trust me. Talk to Brendon and Spencer. Tell them to come out here. Fuck, I’ll pay for everyone’s flights, I promise. You’ll stay here with me and we’ll iron out the details. Man, it’s gonna be fucking great.”

“Yeah, man, yeah. It’s gonna be great,” Ryan whispers. His heart is still racing, caught somewhere between his chest and his throat.

“Cool. So fucking cool,” Pete breathes. “Yeah, call them, call me. Or I’ll call them. We’ll figure it out. Man, I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

Pete hangs up gracelessly and Ryan’s phone drops from his neck to the mattress with a thud. He places his head in his hands and groans loudly. His stomach aches with nerves and he wants to do everything and nothing all at once.

The door to his room opens and Justin peers at him behind his thick glasses, stuck between the hall and their shared space.

“You alright?” he asks.

Ryan cranes his head to look at his roommate and he laughs, just low and quiet enough to not come off as maniacal though that’s exactly how he feels.

“Fuck you, man,” he says between laughs. Justin rolls his eyes and retreats back to where he came from.

*

Spencer brings a Tupperware of spaghetti to Ryan’s dorm on Friday afternoon that his mom had made too much of and insisted Spencer bring it over to Ryan’s. It’s delicious, even one-day old and heated up unevenly in the dorm microwave. The dining hall food is warm but it’s bland and there are only so many slices of pizza Ryan can eat before it all begins to taste like mashed cardboard.

“So, my mom wants you to stay with us for Winter Break,” Spencer says around a mouth full of spaghetti.

Ryan quirks an eyebrow. “As opposed to my house right next door?” he asks.

“We’re going to Colorado again,” Spencer says. “Coming back after New Year’s. Might be nice to hang out with someone other than my grandparents.”

“Fuck, really?” Ryan frowns, not hiding the disappointment in his voice.

“Yeah, dude. Why? What’d you have in mind? You wanted to stay in the dorm?”

Ryan shakes his head and sighs. Spencer’s giving him that look that makes Ryan feel small, like he’s hiding something from his best friend. Which, he is and he isn’t. He was going to tell Spencer eventually. Today, even.

“I haven’t asked Brendon yet,” Ryan begins, and Spencer’s look morphs from concerned to skeptical. “But Pete called last night.”

“Dude, no –“

“Just hear me out!”

“Come on, man, every time that guy calls you with some fucking mess he’s in you always feel the need to bail him out.”

“I do not! And it’s not a mess this time, I promise.”

Spencer’s arms cross over his chest and he leans back in the chair with a judgmental sigh.

“Look, he wants us to go out to New York and record a few demos for his label. He’s already got one band signed and I mean, this could finally be it, dude. I’ve been going crazy here on my own and I know we’re fucking good. _You_ know we’re good. And we’ve wanted this for our whole lives. It’s our chance – don’t we owe it to ourselves to go after it?”

Spencer’s steely expression melts into a small, off kilter grin. He shakes his head, eyes darting downward and away from Ryan like he knows if he looks at Ryan, he’ll shatter to his will without a fight.

“You’re ridiculous,” Spencer says, still shaking his head.

“Only because you know I’m right,” Ryan replies.

He lets out a puff of light laughter and breathes in deep, rolls his neck but still won’t give Ryan a full smile. Ryan reaches out to put a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, forces him to look up.

“I’m not doing this without you, you know.”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

*

Brendon has a panic attack.

It isn’t necessarily the reaction that Ryan was expecting.

They’re lying beneath the sheets of Ryan’s dorm bed. Brendon’s back a comfortable weight against Ryan’s slim chest. They breathe together. Ryan absentmindedly presses kisses to the top of Brendon’s head, breathing in his shampoo, whispering nothing important until he says “Come to New York with me” like it doesn’t mean anything at all.

Brendon stirs against him, turning to look Ryan in the eyes. “What?”

“Come to New York with me,” Ryan repeats, this time louder. “With me and Spencer. To Pete’s. Remember?”

Brendon’s eyes widen. “You were serious!?”

“Wait, you didn’t think I was serious?”

Brendon leaps out of Ryan’s arms like the bed were on fire. He grabs his t-shirt from the floor and shoves it over his head to cover himself as he paces next to the bed. His hands frantically fly from his hair, to the bottom of his tee, to just flailing in front of him.

“Bren, calm down,” Ryan mumbles. “Come on, just relax. We’ll iron everything out.”

“Ryan, I can’t just fucking go to New York, what the fuck!”

Ryan groans and falls backwards onto the too soft pillows. “Baby…”

Brendon stops moving abruptly. His eyes narrow, staring daggers at Ryan. “Don’t you fucking dare. Not right now.”

“Well, can we at least talk this out instead of you digging a hole in the floor?” Ryan pats the empty bed space at his side. “Come back here, what’s going on?”

Brendon rolls his eyes but relents, keeping his shirt on but slipping back into Ryan’s side. Ryan throws an arm around his shoulder and squeezes, presses another kiss back to Brendon’s hair and feels his resolve slip.

“I can’t just go to New York,” he repeats, voice low and raspy in a way it never is. “Things are finally…not shitty. You know? Like, they finally got comfortable with me not going to church without threatening to kick me out of the house. They’re okay with me just, figuring shit out now. It’s better. Really, it is.”

His eyes look impossibly big, illuminated and wet from holding back tears. Ryan’s heart breaks – a tiny corner piece – and he grabs Brendon’s jaw to turn their gazes towards each other. Brendon’s eyes look away as he inhales a shaky breath. He tries to squeeze out of the moment but Ryan won’t let him. He pulls their bodies close until Brendon is almost fully in his lap.

“I know,” Ryan says. “I know things are finally okay. But would you really throw away a chance for things to be more than okay? For things to be good? Great, even?”

“You can’t guarantee that,” Brendon whispers. “No one can.”

“It’s gotta be worth it, though. It’s what we’ve always wanted. Remember the night we met?”

Brendon nods. His forehead falls forward, just barely leaning against Ryan’s, and their lips press against each other in a simple kiss. Ryan’s hands fall to Brendon’s hips, push them forward until Brendon straddles him and he parts his lips to let out a breathy moan. Ryan takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, grinding upwards filthily. His fingers dance up Brendon’s sides, slip beneath the thin hem of his tee to grab more skin. He wants to be closer, to feel more, the warmth and reality of Brendon on top of him.

“Ryan, stop,” Brendon breathes, craning his neck to break them apart. “Not now.”

Ryan’s hands stop moving but he won’t take them away. He holds him in place while his eyes scan his face for any hint of a decision made.

“I told Spencer I wouldn’t do this without him,” Ryan says.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Brendon agrees, sadly.

“But there’s no way I’m going without you. We’ll come back, I promise you, we will come back. But we have to go first. And then we’ll come back and we’ll figure out what to do and who to tell and what to tell them. There may not be anything to tell, you know? But we have to go first. We have to find out.”

Brendon’s hand finds its way to Ryan’s chest, feels the rapid beat of his heart beneath his palm. He’s not lying. He couldn’t lie to Brendon even if he wanted to, but he would never lie about this. His heart beats a rhythm that begs Brendon to trust him on this, just let Ryan have this moment, let him take the reins here and steer them towards where they need to be. Brendon covers Ryan’s lips with his own in one more kiss and Ryan knows that’s a yes.

*

Ryan keeps padding his pocket to make sure his cigarettes are still there. He can’t take the lighter out of his pocket but if he could he’d be lighting up right there. At the very least he’d be playing with the flames.

Brendon squeezes Ryan’s hand. “He’ll be here, dude, just relax.”

They’re all on the same flight. Pete, true to his word, bought all three tickets to New York for Tuesday night. They’re taking the red eye, last flight out of there.

But Spencer is late.

Brendon’s thumb runs up and down Ryan’s knuckles, trying to calm his nerves. He could really use a fucking cigarette, but he’ll settle for rhythmic press of Brendon sweeping across his skin. It’s not the same.

“I’ve never been to New York,” Ryan says.

“You ever seen the ocean?” Brendon asks.

“Once,” Ryan says. “California. I was six.”

Brendon’s head tips to Ryan’s shoulder, still holding his hand. No one has noticed them, practically cuddling on the uncomfortable seats at the terminal gate. Or if they did, they didn’t say a thing. Ryan’s grateful for that.

“I love the ocean,” Brendon says. “Used to go to Hawaii as a kid and I loved it.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ryan says. Brendon hums and nods.

“I have family there.”

“Hawaiian Mormons. That’s an interesting concept.”

“Eh, not as interesting as you would think.”

Ryan smiles down at Brendon and resists the urge to kiss him right there. More and more passengers file in but none of them are Spencer. The comfortable feeling that had been holding Ryan down to reality fades away in exchange for an anxiety that feels like anger.

“I said, he’ll be here, Ryan. He’s not gonna miss this.”

“Call him again,” Ryan says. “Come on, he won’t answer me if he’s not coming but he’ll still answer you.”

“Wouldn’t he know that you and I are together? Which would like, defeat the purpose of his avoiding you?”

“I’ve known him my entire life, Brendon. If he is avoiding me, he’ll answer you. I promise.”

“That makes literally no sense – “

“Can you just call him?” Ryan pleads.

Brendon breaks from Ryan’s side and fishes his phone from his pocket and dials Spencer’s number, putting the phone to his ear with a roll of his eyes. His eyebrows fly up in shock when Spencer greets him with a hello and Ryan stares back at him, smugly.

“Oh shit, hey, dude. Where the fuck are you? Ryan’s freaking out here…”

Brendon says a lot of “yeah” and “uh huh” and “no, yeah, I get it, dude” as his face falls. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Ryan’s as the light behind them dims with realization. Brendon hangs up and shoves his phone back in his pocket wordlessly. He leans his head against Ryan’s shoulder again in silence. It’s meant to be comforting but it shakes Ryan’s nerves and cuts his spine down the middle.

Their section is called to board and Ryan can’t stop himself from turning behind him one last time. He expects to see Spencer running down the corridor, ticket waving violently in his hand, ready to catch up with them. But he’s not coming. Brendon tugs on the sleeve of Ryan’s jacket and he turns to face the ticket teller. He gives her a smile and she brightens back at him. When no one is looking, Brendon slips his palm into Ryan’s and squeezes, and Ryan remembers what he said to him last week. There’s no way he’s going without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is 2 days late! Editing like crazy and trying to fill in some gaps here - we're making progress, though! Thank you to those who have read and commented lately. Didn't think anyone would read let alone comment on my little self indulgent story so thank you for your kind words! Truly means so much to me.


	9. You Talk About the World Like It's Some Place That You've Been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small switch in POV followed by Chapter 9.

**Interlude**

It’s not that Spencer didn’t believe in Ryan or believe in what they all could do. He’s known Ryan for what’s essentially been his whole life. And maybe that’s the problem, you know? Maybe that’s why he didn’t go to New York. Because he _knows_ Ryan, far better than Ryan knows himself. So, he knows what’s awaiting the three of them in New York and he makes the choice that Ryan would never make himself. He makes the right call.

Ryan’s always telling Spencer how talented of a drummer he is, like Spencer doesn’t know it enough already. Or like, Ryan’s the authority on who is a good musician or not. And while Spencer knows he’s a good drummer, he knows that it’s not really the life he wants. He’s not cut out for that life – rock and roll, booze, girls, record contracts, touring, drugs, politics, fame, hotels. He’s seen enough _Behind the Music_ ’s to know what he’s getting himself into and sure, at eighteen how the hell can he really say for sure what he can and cannot handle?

But that’s the point he’s making here – he’s fucking eighteen. Ryan is nineteen. And while he’s a talented and lyrically tortured teenager, he’s still a teenager, just like the rest of them.

So, no. He doesn’t go to New York. And he makes that decision for his future self and for Ryan’s future self and for Brendon’s future self because he knows himself and he knows Ryan, and he knows how dangerous giving a future arsonist a can of gasoline and a book of matches is going to be.

*

Pete’s apartment is not the circus tent that either Ryan or Brendon had expected. It’s quite clean, fairly basic, with an Ikea futon and a hodgepodge of furniture from different garage sales and collective swaps that Pete, Mikey, Frank, or Gerard had carried with them throughout various points in their lives. Gerard paints and his work covers nearly every inch of the wall space in the bedroom he shares with Frank. Their room is mostly black and red and looks a bit like Halloween – more of what Ryan had expected every time he heard them cackling in the background of a phone conversation. Pete’s bedroom consists of a mattress and an old, tall dresser from the 80s: all smooth and shiny lacquer black with gold trim.

The futon isn’t comfortable but it’s better than the floor and it fits them both better than the extra-long twin in Ryan’s dorm. There’s a metal rod that keeps the center stable that pokes in Brendon’s back every night they stay there but he doesn’t complain because that would be rude. He’s a guest. This is not his house. And if his mother taught him anything to take into the world, it’s to be respectful and grateful when you are a guest in someone else’s home.

But every day that they stay is another day that Brendon desperately wants to leave. The apartment may not be the mess he expected, but it’s still cramped and small in a way that makes it feel filthy even though it’s as clean as it could be. It smells like dirty man no matter how many candles Mikey lights or how often they bring their clothes to the laundromat.

They spent all day yesterday at the studio again.

It wasn’t what Brendon had expected when he envisioned a record studio. The room was harshly lit and the guys in the booth seemed disinterested in the music they had been playing for the last week. Pete lent them his friend Patrick on drums and his friend Jon on bass. Both of them were nice enough guys, picked up the music easy enough. Jon wasn’t a bad bassist at all and later, when Brendon walked by another booth at the end of the night, he heard Patrick sing on his own track and was blown away by the voice that he heard. Brendon knew what he had – knew his voice had a strong beauty to it – but whatever Patrick carried was truly something special. Soulful and important in a different way from Brendon’s. Practiced.

Ryan never looked happier than while he was playing ringmaster in the recording studio. They started and stopped and started and stopped and Brendon felt his ego shrink like it did when they were in high school playing in Spencer’s garage. He missed Spencer and Brent and wished they were there to play back up to The Ryan Show, just to calm him down a bit or anchor him to reality the way they were both so good at doing.

They worked; Brendon was sure they did. When it was just them lying in bed, recounting tales of the day they had even if they had spent that day together, Brendon knew they worked. The sex worked, not that Brendon had any other men to compare it to. Not that he _wanted_ any other men to compare it to. And certainly not any other women. That ship had sailed before this ship even came into view.

But here in New York, in the studio with no one else who knows them, they unravel. Ryan’s so scared of losing this one shot that he’s willing to lose everything else to secure it. Brendon’s trying not to take it personally, so he doesn’t throw it in Ryan’s face just how much he has on the line here too. His family, a home, a roof over his head. He doesn’t have a college scholarship to fall back on when this fails. He has his childhood home and the people who raised him and even that could slip away from him at any moment, with any choice he makes.

They’re supposed to leave tomorrow.

They’re supposed to leave tomorrow but Ryan isn’t packing.

Brendon’s throwing some socks absentmindedly into his duffle bag in Pete’s living room. Ryan is outside on the balcony smoking with Frank. He can hear Frank’s voice carry over into the living room, short puffs of laughter from Ryan following faintly thereafter. Brendon watches the two of them, momentarily forgetting his packing to peer through the widows of the French doors they hide behind. It’s freezing – Nevada never gets this cold – but Ryan’s holding his own in just a sweatshirt and long pants. He looks younger than he ever has, nothing like the over-confident heartthrob he pretends to be but more and more like a teenager, just slightly older than Brendon himself.

The front door opens and Brendon jolts to face the source of the interruption. Pete walks in, Patrick just behind him. He greets Brendon with a warm smile and makes his way over to the open futon.

“Leaving so soon?” Pete asks.

“Yeah, man. Gotta get back to Vegas. Christmas and all.”

Patrick nods beside him but it’s a sad nod, like he sympathizes with familial duties instead of yearning for a family of his own to spend time with. They both take a seat and Brendon feels a sense of obligation to stop packing and sit between them.

“You know, Ryan doesn’t want to go back,” Pete says. Brendon nods. “Why are you in such a rush?”

Brendon’s never really looked at Pete up close like this. He’s what Brendon’s mother would call “devilishly handsome” especially when he smiles. There in the small apartment living room, it’s the first time Brendon’s seen Pete’s face without a smile decorating it. He frowns.

“Not a rush,” he lies. “I just – Ryan’s home is different, you know, and my home is…” he trails off. His hands start circling each other in his lap as if that answers Pete’s question.

“You couldn’t make a home here? In New York?”

Brendon casts his eyes down to where his hands finally still. “Did he put you up to this?” he asks, keeps his voice light and friendly and slightly awkward.

“We were talking,” Patrick chimes in, “Pete and I. And you got something, Brendon. You’re really fucking good. Especially when you and Ryan aren’t at each other’s throats.”

“Oh, you noticed that,” Brendon mumbles. Patrick laughs at that, the way an old friend would laugh who’s in on the joke.

“You wrote some of that music we were playing, right?” Patrick asks and Brendon nods. Patrick looks to Pete and smiles. “See, I was telling you, man.”

“Telling him what?” Brendon asks.

It’s starting to feel like a proposition and Brendon can’t really believe it’s happening. He looks around for the hidden camera or for Pete and Patrick to yell out a “gotcha!” but nothing comes.

“Patrick’s working on an album but we heard your voice and your ear and –“

“Come join me,” Patrick rushes.

Brendon’s eyes go wide and he isn’t quite sure which one of them to look at. He chooses the floor.

“Go home first. But come back. Take my number – shit, I’ll fly out to Vegas or something. But helping you guys out in the studio this week I just feel like we could really do something cool together. And I understand if you don’t want to jump ship, you know, I know that you and Ryan are close but just…”

Pete puts a hand on Brendon’s shoulder. He’s smiling now but it’s not the same smile he’s been wearing this week though Brendon can’t place why. “Think about it. Talk to Ryan. Talk to whoever. But just think about it.”

“Yeah, Pete, yeah. I will.”

*

It’s a five-and-a-half-hour flight from New York to Vegas and Brendon thinks the whole flight.

**Chapter 9** : I’m Coming Up Only to Hold You Under

_New York: Spring 2007_

There’s a park far enough away from Ryan’s apartment that his rent isn’t affected, but close enough to walk without needing to catch his breath on the way there.

It’s nothing special, compared to its surroundings in the city. It’s a plot, essentially, surrounded by concrete and large, looming trees with heavy branches. They’ve been dead since November. Just gray, spindly twigs that swayed ominously in the breeze at night. It’s April now, milder and the first signs of spring are sprouting from those dead branches. Light pink and white flowers begin to bud, creating a pastel canopy above the bench Ryan now occupies. He has a notebook on his lap, a pen snug between his top and bottom teeth. He can’t think of anything to write that would capture what’s going on right now and how he’s feeling. His leg bounces and shuffles the pages of the notebook back and forth until he’s had enough. He closes it with a thud and shoves it behind his back, sticks the pen behind his ear, and then he sits.

He looks up at the florals hanging over his head. A perfect flower floats down and lands in his open palm on his lap. He studies it, thinks about taking it back to the apartment but realizes without a stem to hold it, it will be crushed in his palm. Then what use will it do for him?

He’ll take Brendon here when he wakes up. He should have woken him up this morning before he left but he couldn’t find it in him to disturb him. His eyes had maintained a perpetual glassiness over the last few days from stress, from work, from overexerting himself. It was a grind and he wasn’t used to it. New city, new friends, new responsibilities.

Patrick’s album is going to be great, though. Ryan keeps telling him, the album will be great, he’ll be credited on it and what’s even more than all of that, is people will hear him. And they will fall in love with him. Because who couldn’t fall in love with a voice like that? Ryan certainly could.

Brendon hasn’t been back to Vegas since before Christmas. He was supposed to fly back just in time, but he never bought a ticket.

Ryan knows he stays at Spencer’s every time he goes back. He knows that he plans on going back to Vegas fairly soon and will find his way to Spencer’s once again. But if Ryan can keep prolonging that with more work and more music and more late nights and later mornings, he’s going to. And if it pisses Spencer off a bit that Ryan’s keeping him here just a bit longer, then so be it.

Fuck him.

There’s no band anymore anyway.

There’s Brendon in the studio with Patrick’s band and Ryan in the studio with Jon and Nate and sometimes Brendon pops in to do something for an hour before they get into a fight and Brendon asks why the fuck he came out to New York in the first place. And Ryan can never really give a definitive answer to that question so he calls it for the night and scraps everything Brendon did the next morning out of spite only to miss it and rerecord it days later. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Ryan tells Pete how everything is great and how they aren’t fighting all the time, just in the studio. Just where everyone can hear them. And when Pete says, “Maybe you should take a break – just the two of you for a little while,” like he didn’t go on a two-week bender when Mikey broke up with him last June, Ryan nods at him and says “okay” and head’s back to their shared apartment to forget everything but Brendon in his bed.

He sits under the perfect display of flowers and closes his eyes for a moment. He hears a guitar riff in his head he’s been trying to figure out for months now and his fingers move through invisible tabs in practiced muscle memory. He smiles. He’s got it now and his head bobs to a melody only he can hear, and his left foot begins to tap along to the invisible rhythm. It’s coming together, man, it really is.

He’s up and walking back to the apartment, texting Jon his revelations, hoping he’s not so distracted that he trips on the unmaintained sidewalk. He’s humming his own tune as he turns the corner to his building, tapping his own beat on the side of his thigh as he heads up the four floors to his door. He should quit smoking, he thinks, losing his place as his chest constricts with the effort it takes to climb each stair.

Brendon’s still sound asleep, naked but for the comforter wrapped around his body like a too thick toga. He sleeps on his chest, his arms falling off either side of the bed, head twisted to the side on the thin pillow and mouth slightly parted. Ryan leans against the far wall of their studio apartment and watches with a plastered-on grin. He slipped away this morning when Brendon was still sleeping on his side. Ryan had taken his time getting out of bed, voyeuristically peering over to watch Brendon’s chest rise and fall. Just to be sure he was still there, that this was still real.

Brendon stirs and Ryan straightens himself like he’s been caught red-handed. He heads towards him and sits at the bedside; takes a tentative hand and runs it through his thick dark hair, places a kiss to his temple.

“What time is it?” Brendon asks, voice thick with sleep.

“Still early,” Ryan whispers. “9:30.”

Brendon hums and presses up against the hand in his hair. He lifts his body up and rolls to get a better look at him, scrambling beside him to grab his glasses. Ryan takes the opportunity to capture Brendon’s mouth with his own in a kiss that Brendon smiles happily against.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Brendon mumbles against his lips.

“No, you don’t,” Ryan counters and presses his body against Brendon’s for another, fuller kiss.

He swipes his tongue against Brendon’s lips and moves his idle hand to Brendon’s hip, giving a light squeeze. Brendon’s mouth opens and Ryan takes the advantage. He tastes disgusting: all sleep and stale toothpaste he had washed down with a beer before going to bed last night. Ryan doesn’t care. He pushes Brendon back against the pillow and crawls on top of him, careful not to disconnect their lips.

He knows Brendon is hard beneath him and his hand moves from his hip to Brendon’s cock. Brendon gasps beneath him, their mouths disconnecting. Ryan latches on to the smooth expanse of his throat, down to his collar bone, leaves little bites here and there while his hand continues stroking.

“Fuck,” Brendon breathes, back arched and hand tugging lightly at Ryan’s hair. It’s so long now, light curls that Brendon tangles his fingers in and pulls at.

Ryan takes the tug for the request that it is and sinks down his body, trailing kisses across his chest, wet and sloppy and lazy because they have all the time in the world. He takes Brendon in his mouth and he hears the sharp intake of breath from above him.

Those hands still in his hair, holding him steady while he bobs up and down, licks and sucks and strokes. Brendon unravels beneath him. Words of encouragement fall from his slack jawed mouth. Ryan chances to look up to watch him fall apart. His beautiful face twisted in pleasure, a sheen of sweat covering his brow.

“Ry,” he whispers, “fuck, Ryan, _now_.”

Greedily, he holds Brendon’s hips down and takes him all the way down as he swallows. Brendon chokes out a wrecked moan to the ceiling before Ryan finally lets him go, sliding up his body to wrap an arm around his middle.

Brendon turns in his arm to allow his head to fall against Ryan’s chest and sighs against his t-shirt.

“How do you have so many clothes on? That’s not fair,” Brendon mumbles.

Ryan laughs. “I went for a walk,” he explains.

Brendon dislodges his head to blink up at him in question. Ryan doesn’t say anything, just kisses him again because he’s a weak, powerless man when it comes to Brendon in the early morning.

“You’re disgusting,” Brendon says lightly, settling back against Ryan’s chest.

“Now you complain,” Ryan teases. He can feel Brendon laugh against him and he squeezes him closer, tighter.

“I don’t want to do anything today,” Brendon says.

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m not gonna,” he says with a yawn. “You don’t have to either, you know.”

Ryan frowns. “I texted Jon,” he says. “I gotta get this recorded before I lose it, you know?”

Brendon goes still in his arms and Ryan knows he messed up. He opens his mouth to say something, whatever excuse he can give Brendon to keep whatever mood he woke up in going. Brendon rolls away from him to the edge of the bed and sits up. Ryan can see that hard edge in his shoulder, the slight curvature of his spine, all the tension in his muscles. He wants to run his hands up and down and soothe it all out of him. Kiss his every knotted tendon until he’s back to puddy in his hands.

He reaches his arm out and lets it hover around the dead space between them before bringing it back to his chest. It’s best to let him sit there, he’s learned. He’ll sit there and think in silence and eventually turn to Ryan with what’s bothering him if Ryan can be patient enough to wait for him.

That’s been the biggest problem here: Ryan’s patience. He just isn’t. He never has been, when he thinks about it. But he’s certainly not patient now that the world is displayed before him like a grand buffet. He wants to pick at everything and load his plate until he’s so full he may burst, then go up for seconds. Brendon’s more careful and measured. He weighs every option and prepares every word before it leaves his lips.

Brendon gets up suddenly and silently. Ryan cocks his head to the side. This is new. He follows closely behind, watching Brendon head into the kitchen and drink orange juice from the carton and wipe his mouth without putting it back in the fridge.

Ryan sighs. “I can stay,” he says to Brendon’s back.

“Yeah?” he asks but he doesn’t turn to face him.

Ryan strides forward and crowds his space against the small kitchen counter. His hands fall to Brendon’s hips and hold him. He hooks a chin over Brendon’s shoulder and he can feel his body melt against his chest.

“We’ll do whatever you want today,” Ryan whispers in his ear.

His arms move to circle Brendon’s waist and pull him closer so now they’re cheek-to-cheek. Brendon smiles and Ryan can feel it.

“What if I want to do nothing?” Brendon asks.

“We can do that,” Ryan says.

*

The album is due in June. He promised Pete, said he wouldn’t regret it. Pete still believes in him so he’s given him all the time he needs. He’s been in the studio since last October, but it doesn’t work like that. The doors to the studio don’t unlock the secrets to good music. He won’t release those songs he wrote with the guys, not the ones that Brendon sings so well. And Brendon won’t sing them, he’s made that clear.

Sometimes, Ryan feels like Brendon doesn’t want this – not the way he wanted it before. Years ago, on the swing set in the dark night of a late Nevada summer. They talked about it in depth with all of their plans and dreams and watched them materialize from their mouths. It wasn’t a fever dream; it was real, it happened, and Ryan was so sure it could still.

Brendon lays in his arms in their bed, humming a song that isn’t Ryan’s under his breath. Ryan keeps him caged inside his limbs though Brendon doesn’t have plans to break away any time soon. Still, Ryan keeps him secured in his grasp.

He leans his head back and sways to the melody Brendon hums below him. He wants to write about this moment here and the complication he feels knocking around his heart. Where his duties lie – to himself, to his art, to the man in his arms. He thinks about his freshman art history class and remembers the questions his professor had asked him: what is art and why does it matter? Who do we make art for?

“Can I play you something?” Ryan asks.

Brendon squirms a bit, straining to take a look at Ryan’s face. “Always. I love when you play for me.”

Ryan wrestles himself free and rolls over to find his guitar propped up against the wall. Brendon settles himself back in bed, head in his hands and elbows on his knees in anticipation. Ryan starts, voice shaky at the start but raw and real and it’s a stripped down less fanciful version of a song he had tried writing so many times. Brendon’s body moves forward in rapt fascination that gives Ryan the confidence to carry the tune. He knows what his voice sounds like comparatively, but Brendon’s never said anything negative. On the contrary, he’s only ever requested to sing along with Ryan late at night when it’s just the two of them or the rare occasion they leave the studio, separately but together, wrapped in each other’s arms, high on the fumes of creation.

Brendon smiles, eyes wet behind his glasses with some emotion pulled forward that Ryan is responsible for. It’s that beautiful smile he’s been wearing since the night they met almost four years ago. Christ, four years. A lot has changed in that time but not that smile.

“Is that what you figured out this morning?” Brendon finally asks.

“Yeah, finally. It’s the last song on the album. Well, Jon and I haven’t figured out the track listing but it’s the one we’ve had the biggest trouble with. It kept unraveling and I couldn’t get it to loop back in place the right way. But I think, I think I got it.”

Brendon nods. “Yeah, Ryan, I think you got it. It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?” Ryan doesn’t disguise the hopeful tinge in his voice.

“I love it. I love that you sing it. It’s made for you.”

_I want to make things for you to sing again_ , Ryan thinks to himself. He watches Brendon’s face carefully for any sign that he’s somehow read his thoughts. Brendon’s hair is still sleep-mussed, and Ryan can see fingerprint smudges on the lens of his glasses. He’s got that five o’clock shadow that Ryan secretly loves feeling burn against his cheek. He leans the guitar back against the wall and opens his arms in invitation. Brendon takes it, crawling back into Ryan’s lap like a cat. His skin is warm from cuddling under the comforter all day.

“So, this is what we’re gonna be doing all day?” Ryan whispers in his ear.

“You said anything I want, and I want to do nothing,” Brendon says.

He wriggles himself against Ryan’s lap and fishes for the remote. Their television is old and comes in squiggly but they get a bunch of channels that Ryan’s pretty sure they’re stealing but he doesn’t mind. Brendon flips through the channels and Ryan feels a swell from deep within his heart. He looks so reminiscent of the high school kid that hung out with him all summer, flopping on Ryan’s childhood bed while changing between MTV and TNT with the occasional Maury episode.

“Oh _yes_ ,” Brendon exhales. “Fucking _Dirty Dancing_. Okay, this-this is what we’re doing now.”

He’s grinning from ear to ear with that impossibly large mouth of his. Ryan kisses his cheek and they settle into bed with Ryan’s hands in Brendon’s hair and on his shoulders, all the places he wanted to touch those years ago.

The song stays in Ryan’s head for the rest of the day. It makes his skin itch and his shoulders knot, but he ignores it for the feeling of a heavy, comfortable weight against his chest. They’re okay. They’re going to be just fine.


	10. I Had a Vision I Could Turn You Right

Brendon only stayed in Vegas for two weeks after the initial flight to New York. They had spoken every morning except for Christmas morning. Brendon instead snuck away to call Ryan late at night, forgetting the time difference. Not that Ryan minded – he hadn’t fallen asleep before two in the morning since he arrived in New York. Preoccupied with chasing the high of creativity with a writing partner he had dreamt of collaborating with.

They would lie there every night, just Pete and Ryan on the futon, pouring over each other’s lyrics like they were the only two people in the world who knew the power each word could wield. Sometimes the roommates would join in but for the most part, Mikey, Gerard, and Frank would leave them be. Mikey would lean against the doorway of his shared bedroom with Pete, smiling affectionately watching his boyfriend play with his new toy until it was time to retire. And Mikey was fine retreating to an empty bed, it seemed, while Pete and Ryan gathered themselves in pen ink and blankets.

It was different to writing with the boys in Spencer’s garage. Ryan had never felt matched wit for wit like he matched with Pete. Musically, Brendon could help him compose something to match the beauty his words inspired (and Pete admitted that so many of Patrick’s songs were inspired by Pete’s lyrics it was almost like being a band again), but lyrically none of them could ever keep up. Not like this.

“He’s good, you know,” Pete said.

“Better than me,” Ryan said. It came out more self-deprecating than he meant it to.

Pete shook his head.

“Not better,” Pete corrected. “Different. Marketable.”

“Marketable,” Ryan repeated.

He watched Pete’s face morph into something Ryan could only describe as predatory. His teeth bared, sunk into his bottom lip, eyes blackened in a deep space of thought Ryan couldn’t penetrate. It was unnerving even if for only a moment. Like his own magician, Pete snapped himself out of the trance he was under and forced his attention back to the papers before the two of them, pouring over the lyrics scribbled on half-torn pages.

“I’m glad you’re here, Ryan,” Pete said. He turned his eyes back towards Ryan and delivered a half-shy smile his way. “We’re going to do some incredible things together, you and I.”

“You really believe that?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, kid. Trust me. We’re gonna take over the world.”

*

The album is done.

It’s packed with allegories of love stories that took place in different eras, different worlds, but all love – every one of them filled with love. Some of them are real, plucked from the pages of both Ryan and Jon’s own autobiographies. Jon croons about the ring that burns a hole in his pocket each day and Ryan laments his own celestial bodied romance. It’s better than what he could have accomplished on his own and, though he’ll never admit it, more fulfilling than what he had done in the past.

He never thought that he would find anyone he would love playing music with more than Brendon or Spencer. Shit, even Brent, as terrible as he was, was still a fun guy to jam the fuck out with. But Jon came in with a totally new camera lens to document their lives with and it produced the most beautiful prints in black and white, right there for human consumption.

Brendon likes it. It’s not what he plays with Patrick in the studio; those songs their own blend of a soulful sound against a punk rock beat that only the two of them could really carry. And even that, as good as it is, as _marketable_ as Pete says it is, isn’t what Ryan would have ever penned himself.

Creative differences.

But Ryan can appreciate what’s good and what’s not and what Brendon’s been doing is good. It’s very good. It’s excellent.

But it’s not Ryan’s.

At night, they lie in bed and share their dreams like they’re seventeen in Ryan’s childhood bedroom again. A house in the country, a lake behind them, covered in snow. And Ryan suggests with his fingers dancing across Brendon’s ribs, what about a home by the shore, maybe in Nova Scotia. Brendon laughs at the idea or at the light touch but whispers in the dark that yeah, they can trade the woods for the sea, as long as they remain locked in that home for the rest of the days. No one enters, no visitors for a weekend or two, their own private fort.

When they finally tire themselves out, as beautiful as that fantasy remains, Ryan remembers when the dreams they shared involved the bright lights of a stage and thousands of fans screaming their name.

Pete’s office hangs suspended on the 27th floor of a faceless building. The giant windows give the impression of power that he doesn’t have yet but will do anything to maintain, his own dream realized. He took Ryan there the day after Brendon left; walked him through rows of empty cubicles and deep, dark grey carpeting against too-white walls. His office contains a large oak desk and a tufted red velvet chair that cannot be comfortable to sit in all day. For the most part, Pete doesn’t sit in it all day. He walks through those same rows with a coffee in his hand, musing and nodding at his employees, giving them the million-dollar smile that makes the young interns melt in their sad plastic spinning chairs.

By that first summer, The Academy Is… finished their first tour for _Almost Here_ and had officially landed on Pete’s label. He put them to work and began reaping benefits he didn’t technically deserve. He hired people who were willing to work for free. Gabe Saporta’s new band, Cobra Starship, released _While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets_ that fall to a modest success – modest enough that the people who were working for free started to get paid and hire their own people to work for free.

Ryan and Jon sit in Pete’s office, giant desk staring them down with its own form of judgment. Pete’s hands are folded on the tabletop and he smiles the same predatory smile that’s become a signature of sorts, appearing only when they walk through the doors of this office.

The album is done, and Pete wants a tour.

“How big?” Jon asks.

“Not too big,” Pete says. “Maybe fifteen cities. No more than twenty. We’re thinking you guys, The Hush Sound, and Phantom Planet. Not a real headliner tour but all three of you will kind of share the spotlight. Grab a few local bands to tag along on the way that fit the vibes.”

All he’s missing is a cigar in his hand and a tub of grease in his hair, Ryan thinks. Maybe an oversized suit. His skin crawls.

“That’s like, what, three months?” Jon asks.

“Give or take. We’ll get you a nice bus – no van shit. A real honest to God bus. We’ll have to think of a name for the tour. Something catchy but also not too punchy. I’ll have creative work on it.”

“Don’t you think we should come up with the name?” Ryan pipes up. His throat feels sandy and dry and he realizes he hasn’t spoken since they walked in the door.

“Oh yeah!” Pete exclaims, sounding more like his friend than his boss once again. “Yeah, Ryan! Of course! Get together with the other guys and see what sticks. Maybe tonight at the club after the party.”

What party?

Pete’s face falls making him look genuine for the first time today. “Oh shit, didn’t I tell you? We’re throwing a party now that the album’s wrapped! Everyone on the label is coming. Man, we’re all so proud of you guys. It’s great, honestly. People are gonna love it. It’s so _you_ , you know?”

He keeps talking but Ryan isn’t listening. His ears are filled with water and his throat is filled with sand. He grips the arms of the too stiff velvet chair he sits in to steady himself. It doesn’t feel right. This isn’t right somehow but how can Ryan make that determination? How does he know what right feels like? How does he know what contracts to sign, what tours to say no to? Can he say no? He breathes in through his nose and looks at the desk and allows it to judge him with its grandiose oak body while Pete talks and Jon laughs.

*

Pete bought Angels and Kings on a fucking dare. He had been drinking with Frank in their new apartment on a night when Ryan was over while Brendon was visiting Vegas. Ryan had been invited as an afterthought, though he appreciated it all the same.

Frank had been daring Pete all night to do stupid shit during a game of Truth or Dare between two adult men since everyone else in the group had abandoned them. Gerard and Mikey watched them from the kitchen while Ryan chain smoked from the balcony alone. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Frank abruptly pushed through the sliding glass door to point down and to the right, yelling “that one!” loudly in Pete’s ear.

Never one to back down for anything, Pete bought it the next morning. Stone cold sober.

It became a spot for the label to drink themselves into oblivion or jam to a drunken crowd of their peers when there was nothing but time left to fill. Brendon thrived in those moments. A spotlight on him seated at a piano, sweat dripping from his hair onto the ivory keys below him. The lights illuminated behind him like a halo and the voice of a fallen angel, belting and crooning everything from Frank Sinatra to Fleetwood Mac to the swaying crowd with lighters in the air. Ryan would watch him with stars in his eyes and a lustful heart. They’d go home clinging to each other, Brendon fucking Ryan into the mattress with all the energy and passion he had poured onto the stage. Ryan reveled in those nights – the damp sheets balled in his fists, back arching off the mattress and throat burning with moans he couldn’t keep down even if he tried.

His lover, beautiful and talented and the source of every beautiful word he sang into a studio microphone. Still at the studio when Ryan comes home, zombie like, after his meeting with Pete. He sends a quick text to Brendon telling him to meet at Angels and Kings when he gets out (an unwritten message of “if you get out in time” – Patrick’s almost worse than Ryan is when it comes to perfection) because Ryan is nothing if not loyal. If Pete wants them to hang out at Angels and Kings and bond before the tour, Ryan will be there. He’ll at least give it a shot.

Brendon texts him back. _We’ll be out soon. Patrick said something about a party?_

Ryan smiles almost amazed that years later, seeing Brendon’s name light up his screen can still bring out the butterflies. _Pete’s throwing it for the album. He neglected to tell us until now._

Brendon types back quickly. _Classic Pete. See you there <3 <3 <3_

Little “less than threes” set the butterflies aflutter. Ryan looks down at his phone in his hand and idly wonders if there’s time for a quick nap before he can shower and put together something presentable for a party. His hair is a little greasy, as long as it’s gotten since hiding away in the studio since January. He skips the nap and hops in the shower, opting to let his hair air dry naturally after a good wash before heading out for the night.

Their apartment in the city is small – not even 1,000 square feet but it’s what they can afford on the advance Pete’s given them both. Ryan steps in the shower after letting it warm and steam up the bathroom, remembers Brendon’s nose wrinkling the first time he came to see it.

“It’s dirty,” Brendon had said. “It’s old.”

Ryan had come up behind him and wrapped his arms around Brendon’s middle. He followed Brendon’s eyes downward to the tile below their feet. It wasn’t dirty, Ryan had argued. It was old, sure, but that gave it a certain charm, didn’t it? He painted the picture for Brendon there in the bathroom of the years of tenants that roamed the halls before they did.

He stands under the spray, let’s the memory wash over him. He had turned them around in that small space, staring out the door of the bathroom to look at their open living room and kitchen. Look at that kitchen, he whispered in Brendon’s ear. Imagine all of the meals some beautiful woman cooked for her lover right in there. He pointed to the bed and imagined all of the mornings that must have been spent in another bed in another time, right in that corner where we’ll be making love every morning until, one day, we can afford to leave this apartment. And then we’ll be part of its story for another couple to remember.

Brendon had melted against him, his breathing shallow as he turned in Ryan’s arms. Every morning? His deep brown eyes shone in the harsh white lights of their bathroom and Ryan hadn’t meant to have said it in that moment, but he let slip the words from his lips: I love you.

Soap in his eyes, Ryan remembers the moment so vividly. He chooses to stand there a while longer just under the spray. He wonders if he could spend his entire night under that spray, hidden in that memory.

He shakes his body dry like a dog hopping out of the shower, shaking the nerves away with every droplet. He wraps a towel around his waist and pads to the shared living space to find something to wear and he cards his fingers through his wet hair. Does he bring his guitar? No, right? He texts Jon and asks if Jon’s bringing his bass and Jon never responds.

He chooses to leave it. There are guitars there.

Black jeans, white button down, black leather jacket, favorite pair of black and red Chelsea boots.

He shrugs his shoulders in the mirror. Easy enough.

He knows he’s going to sweat in that leather jacket, walking in the August heat down to the club, so he calls himself a cab instead of leaving the jacket at home. $11 is a small price to pay for comfort, he tells himself.

It’s still early but a few regulars are there. Some kids that look just like Ryan did at that age, hanging out on the side of the venue, waiting for someone older to ignore the fake IDs and Xs on the back of their hands. Not that Ryan’s even 21 himself yet – but at least he’s weeks away instead of years.

Spencer’s birthday is exactly one month from today. Ryan stops remembering that when the cab pulls up to the front of the club.

Gabe is already there, a few empty glasses marking his place at the bar. He’s got an arm around Travis, yelling some kind of joke into his ear. Travis tips his head back in laughter and grabs his glass from the bar to finish it down. Ryan looks to the tables and sees a few familiar faces and some noticeably absent ones. The boys from All Time Low are finishing up a stint at Warped Tour, hoping this time to join the label when they return. Ryan likes when they show up, all burning energy. William is missing but the rest of The Academy Is… are here, bumping into each other. Some of Pete’s friends – Andy and Joe – are fucking around on the stage that looks so small with all of the club lights on. It looks much better in the dark.

A hand falls on Ryan’s shoulder and shakes him a bit. He tenses a bit at first before turning to see Alex from Phantom Planet, grinning from ear to ear with a drink in his free hand.

“Congrats, man!” Alex yells. He removes his hand from Ryan’s shoulder and sticks it out in front of him for Ryan to shake. Ryan laughs but takes it anyway. “Jon played me a few songs the other night, dude. It’s a great album.”

“Yeah?” Ryan asks. Alex nods too quickly. It’s aggressive but also kind of endearing. 

Ryan’s eyes narrow a bit as he tries to read the puzzle before him. Alex is a cool enough guy, not that they’ve spent more than five minutes with each other previously. This may actually be the longest conversation they’ve held, and Ryan’s not even really the one holding it. He looks over Alex’s shoulder to the circle booth in the corner where he sees the rest of Phantom Planet and Bob from The Hush Sound squeezed in together, knocking a few drinks back. Jon had managed to sneak in unnoticed and slides next to Bob easily.

Alex follows Ryan’s gaze behind him and turns his attention back to Ryan with a grin. “Come hang out with us for a bit, man,” Alex says and Ryan feels a bit like he’s just been invited to eat lunch at the Cool Kids Table in high school.

“Yeah, a few drinks,” Ryan says and follows Alex to the corner booth.

The guys are all in their own conversations, clouding the corner with sweet smoke. Ryan settles in next to Jon who puts a friendly, comforting hand on Ryan’s shoulder like a thank you for sitting with them. It eases him. Jon has that way about him – calming and relaxed at all times. Made writing with him feel less intense, less critical. Organic, in a way that other collaborations never felt. Even writing with Pete had felt a bit more like a lesson, even a competition at times. But not with Jon.

More alumni roll in with hooting and hollering and a server brings Ryan a drink he never ordered again and again. His brain feels foggy but he’s not out of control. Someone passes him a joint and he takes it and holds it for a beat too long before it burns his longs and he sputters a cough across the table, the guys all laughing and Jon clapping a hand in the middle of his back to steady him. The same server brings him water without being asked.

Gabe and Ryland come over and crowd the booth to share their congratulations, followed shortly by their fellow bandmates, Alex and Nate, and Ryan’s cheeks flush with a belated congratulations to them on their second album dropping this year. Gabe’s not bothered and neither is anybody else.

Ryan’s pretty sure there’s a line forming to offer him and Jon their praise. His neck burns hot and he wonders how much more drunk he can get before he stops feeling so studied. He wonders how many people in the queue have actually listened to the album – a few of them he knows for sure have but some of them he’s not so sure. He thinks of Pete, ordering them to show respect behind that rotten, oak desk.

The line is distracted by Patrick and Brendon, stumbling in already buzzed through the back doors of the VIP lounge. Gabe lights up, arms flailing about as he bum-rushes the door to scoop the much smaller Patrick up in his arms in a tight bear hug. Ryan hears Brendon’s laughter, symphonic and sweet. He wriggles himself out between Jon and Nate and slithers through the crowded room to find Brendon himself.

He wraps his arms around Brendon’s middle and feels him stiffen against his chest. Ryan presses his lips to his ear and whispers “Relax, it’s me,” and Brendon does but not fully. Not until he turns in Ryan’s arms and faces him, a smile melting across his features. He buries his head in Ryan’s neck and inhales him like they haven’t seen each other in days. That might actually be true, Ryan thinks.

“Congratulations,” Brendon mumbles into Ryan’s skin. Ryan places a kiss to his hair as a thank you.

“Come on, let’s celebrate,” he whispers and pulls Brendon from his hiding spot to rest on his side. Brendon smiles wide and takes Ryan’s hand eagerly to lead them to Ryan’s new spot.

No one talks about the tour – not Jon, not the guys from Phantom, nor the Hushies or Pete himself. But the longer they stay together like this with Brendon in his lap, sharing a joint every now and again, the more Ryan feels like this could be it. It’s not so wrong anymore, right? It could all work out. Just like this. Brendon in his lap, trade the booth at a club for a bunk on a tour bus, and it could all work out. Just like Pete promised him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert for next chapter: angst. That's all I'm gonna share.


	11. I Think I'm Going Through Denial

_Lake George, New York: Summer 2008_

They’re taking a break.

The press, the tours, the interviews, the signatures, the photos, the time spent apart and all of it for nothing more than label expectations. To please the shadowy men in suits that lord over Pete with their own desks and their own eyes void of anything but dollar signs.

Being a rock star was never meant to include more than writing and performing. Explaining his words, explaining his process, standing against a white backdrop waiting for a photographer to tell him where to go, how to stand, what to hold, how to pose and all of that artificial fame meant nothing to Ryan. Being a rock star for Ryan was about the music, followed by the people he wrote that music for. Nothing else mattered.

Brendon, on the other hand, was born for those moments. On tour, they’d stop in a gas station somewhere in the middle of the country and Ryan would walk the magazine aisle to find Brendon’s smile – as beautiful and wide as it ever was – plastered in glossy 8x10, positioned just one body away from Patrick, right at the edge of the page. He’d pick it up and trace a finger over his features in awe. Flipping through the pages while an attendee clerk narrowed his eyes at him from behind a register, Ryan would skim the interview to find the usual three or four sentences written about Brendon.

Sometimes they would write about his voice on the tracks, a stand-out multiplier to Patrick’s already stunning pipes. Sometimes they would write about him and his personality, capturing the sparkle that always accompanied his laughter. How shy he could become at his own talent thrust upon the world and yet how excited he was to share it during live performances. Ryan would always buy them and leave them strewn across the tour bus where no one would dare remove them.

Ryan rented a convertible for their drive out of the city; cherry red and shining in the sunlight. They drove with the top down the whole way, their hands joined together in the center. Ryan had one hand on the steering wheel, leaning back into the summer air with his foot on the gas. He felt like James Dean, driving fast on an unknown highway with no rules or responsibilities holding him back. He may have felt like James Dean, but Brendon looked the part – dark sunglasses and wind-tousled hair, the top three buttons of his white linen left open and his chest exposed. Beautiful and perfect and so much more than the glossy magazine covers could ever portray him as.

The cabin sits on the lake with a large front and back porch. There are two Adirondack chairs that overlook the water, calm and still until the birds skim its top and disrupt it only for a moment. Ryland had recommended the place: “So secluded,” he said, “no one around for miles – tell you what, it’s almost creepy.” It’s nothing special at first when Ryan pulls the car up to the drive. It’s seated high, and his first thought is the pain in the ass it will be to drag the luggage up those stairs, but he catches that first glimpse of the water and it takes his breath away.

Brendon starts pulling luggage out of the backseat and Ryan turns to help him. He grabs his guitar case and Brendon lifts an eyebrow at him.

“How’d you manage to sneak that in here?” he asks, amused.

“I didn’t sneak it,” Ryan says with a grunt. “Figured, you know, you, me, nobody else around for miles –“

“See, that just spells week-long fuck fest for me,” Brendon laughs.

Ryan rolls his eyes and hoists the case over his shoulder to make his way up the stairs. “Who said we can’t have both?” he calls from the top of the steps and he can’t see Brendon smiling and shaking his head, but he doesn’t need to.

The walls are bare wood, and it smells a bit musty from lack of use, but it’s still cleaner than their apartment is right now, though that’s not saying much. There’s a beautiful fireplace shrouded in stone that is begging to be lit this evening. Brendon makes his way to the back porch immediately, dropping their bags off in the bedroom that’s hidden in the back of the house. His sunglasses are in his hair, leaving his wide eyes on display. Ryan can’t help but scoop him into his arms from behind and Brendon leans back into him easily, sighing content.

“Look at this,” he says, breathless. “You did good.”

“I didn’t do anything. It was all Ryland,” Ryan whispers in his ear.

Brendon laughs and Ryan can feel it vibrate through his own body. “Take the compliment,” he says.

Ryan kisses his cheek and Brendon tugs him closer like he hasn’t done all year. Ryan’s stomach churns as he struggles to remember the last moment they were this close and familiar. Intimate, sure, if you could call it that. But fucking against the sink in the kitchen just to get off isn’t intimate. It’s fucking. There’s a difference. And fucking Brendon was never just about getting off like it has been the last year – just quick friction and muffled moaning before someone had to go somewhere and do something.

He wants to blame the tour but it’s not the tour’s fault. It’s not the rapid success of Patrick’s band versus the moderate (mediocre) success of Ryan’s. It’s not New York’s fault, though sometimes Ryan thinks that Brendon places all his blame on the city. Blames it for his father’s lack of communication, or the tears his mother still can’t stymie after nearly two years at the end of every phone call. 

They break apart and Ryan lights a nervous cigarette with a shaking hand, still standing. Brendon raised an eyebrow at him, plucks the cigarette from Ryan’s fingers and brings it to his own lips. He inhales and exhales, smoke pouring out from behind a smirk that drives Ryan wild, before handing it back to him.

“How do you do that?” Ryan asks, taking the cigarette greedily.

“Smoke?” Brendon asks.

“Make everything you do look so good,” Ryan says, his voice nearly a low growl.

Brendon’s smirk erupts into a laugh and he grabs Ryan’s hips by his beltloops, brings their bodies flush together. He’s intoxicating still to this day.

Ryan gasps, says, “I’m still so amazed by you.”

Brendon blushes deeply at that, a quick red that fades as quickly as it appears. He straightens up a bit, brings his hands to grip Ryan’s ass, and whispers in his ear, “So show me. Show me how amazed you are.”

They trip over luggage on the way to the bedroom, clothes ripped off and discarded in the hallway as they go. But Ryan’s going to show him. He’ll show him as many times as Brendon needs to see it.

*

There’s something peaceful about the water for Ryan. Living in a desert nearly his entire life, with its back breaking heat in the day and harsh dry winds at night; it left him with nothing but daydreams of a cool, still body of water that could ground and ease him.

He leaves Brendon to sleep in their temporary bed, opting to grab his guitar from the hallway and sit out on the porch and await inspiration.

Ryan had visited lakes before. When he was 9, his dad took him on a fishing trip to Lake Mead. It’s one of the very few happy memories he has left of him and his father. They haven’t spoken in some time now but it’s better that way, for both of them. Ryan knows that he’s sick, and sometimes he thinks about calling home, and sometimes he thinks about calling Ginger because he knows that she’s keeping an eye on him still. But he never picks up the phone. He’s listened in on enough of Brendon’s one-sided phone calls to get the gist of what he’s missing.

He only ever wrote about his dad once – the last time he took a trip to the hospital, the day after Christmas. He wrote a damn good song, he thinks, and he starts to play it. It’s meant for an electric guitar but it’s not so bad stripped down. The sound carries more than he expected across the water, but he doesn’t stop playing. He sings the lyrics under his breath and remembers the way Brendon sang them in Spencer’s garage years ago. He had such a strength to his voice that Ryan could never bring himself to have. Not better, his brain supplies, but different. He keeps going though, lets the words come from his chest and not his throat and even if his voice cracks, he doesn’t care. He’s going to let himself have this moment. Alone on the water, no one to hear the words he wrote at eighteen.

His face is red by the end of the song. His body hums with an undercurrent of catharsis and nostalgia that makes him feel all at once like he’s heavy and floating. He feels a hand on his shoulder; Brendon in a thin t-shirt and boxers and a pitying smile on his lips.

“Haven’t heard you play that in years,” he remarks, settling into the chair next to Ryan. “You doing okay?”

Ryan smirks. “Am I ever?”

Brendon doesn’t return the smile. Instead, he looks to the cigarette pack sitting on the arm of his chair and grabs one for himself. He offers one to Ryan and he takes it, frowning.

“Lately, Ry, I dunno,” Brendon says. “I don’t wanna say you don’t seem like yourself. Because you do. But you also seem…”

Distant. Aloof. Detached. Withdrawn. Ryan’s brain fills in the gaps, waiting for Brendon to pick the right one.

“…not okay,” Brendon finishes.

“Not okay,” Ryan repeats.

“You’re the poet,” Brendon snaps.

It sounds like he’s saying “fuck you.” Ryan chews on his lip and smokes his cigarette, unwilling to respond to that. Brendon does this to him sometimes, or at least he did when they first moved in together. He picks fights. He picks fights because he knows he’s going to win them because unless they’re in the studio, what does Ryan have to fight him on? He’ll always win with Ryan. He won years ago.

Eventually he settles with, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem –“

“Brendon, I promise.” He turns his head and offers a smile – not too big, not too forced, just a wide enough grin to diffuse the argument that Brendon is dying to have. He reaches over to grab Brendon’s hand and squeezes it lightly. “I’m fine. I’m here with you, on vacation and it’s beautiful and I just miss you.”

Brendon melts at that. “I’m right here,” he says softly. He runs his thumb across Ryan’s knuckles like he always has. It brings Ryan back to reality when he’s far and away.

A wind rips through the stillness of the lake and creates waves that weren’t there when they first got here. They look choppy and angry and not the picture of serenity they were a moment ago.

*

The truth is, things aren’t going Ryan’s way.

He stares at the wall while Brendon sleeps beside him. His back is stick straight, the posture he retained from Catholic school, with his long, spidery legs dangling off the edge of the bed. He watches the shadows from the trees make claw-like shapes along the lines of the wood and he follows their movements as they sway in the breeze. He stares for a while longer than he intends to, past the point of falling back asleep.

On tour, he couldn’t just get up and grab a cigarette in the middle of the night when his thoughts became too loud to let him drift back to sleep. He tossed and turned and wrapped and unwrapped himself from sheets that were never soft enough, no matter how often they were washed. Laying on his side, blue light of his phone illuminating his features while he thought about texting people he hadn’t spoken to; while he thought about what he would even fucking say until he decided it didn’t matter and rolled over to his opposite side. Or on his back, staring up at the makeshift ceiling provided by the bunk above him. He should have taken the top bunk.

When he figures out that he’s not going back to sleep for at least a few hours, he gives himself the luxury of a cigarette break on the back porch of the cabin. They bought a carton before the trip. Brendon says he doesn’t smoke but he’ll grab one out of Ryan’s hands and inhale a few times before he passes it back. He never smokes the last one in the pack. Because he’s considerate or because he doesn’t want to buy another pack after.

He doesn’t miss Las Vegas. Not even a little bit.

New York isn’t going to be his home forever and that’s okay. It’s a great home for now and it fits him for now and, when he outgrows it, he’ll slip into another city that will fit his new jagged edges just as well.

Touring was a totally different experience than Ryan expected and he’s grateful to Pete for putting it together, now that’s it over. They played on the west coast – Alex’s home which he couldn’t get enough of, telling Ryan they’ll come back here together and Alex will show him what California is “really” like. It was nice to see a new ocean. There was something about Alabama that Ryan loved. He’s written a song about it but hasn’t put a name to it and doesn’t know if he will.

They skipped Nevada. That was for the best.

He lights another cigarette and leans against the side of the cabin wall.

It’s not about the fame, he wants to make that clear (to himself, to anyone that will listen) that it’s not the fame or lack thereof. It’s okay not to be famous. You can be a rock star without being famous. Jeff Lynne is a fucking legend and no one has seen him without his aviator shades and overwhelming curls. He probably takes those sunglasses off and goes to the Super Food Mart like everyone else in flip flops and cut off shorts and no one looks twice at him.

Brendon can have the fame. He deserves the fame because no matter how big the stage is, Brendon dominates it. Sometimes he wonders how Patrick can stand it, being upstaged by his back-up singer/pianist. Or maybe Ryan’s the only one who’s looking at it that way. He’s just fucking magnetic and maybe Ryan’s jealous and maybe he can admit it. But not jealous of Brendon, jealous of Patrick. Jealous that Patrick gets to have him in that way.

He lights a third cigarette before he can even crush the stub under the sole of his slides. He kicks it into the lake and immediately feels bad about it afterwards. He keeps smoking.

It was the most surreal experience, seeing kids just slightly younger than him singing along to his lyrics. Not all of them, not every song, but some of them. They sang along like it meant something to them. How amazing, right? And that’s what he wanted, what he said he always wanted.

He runs a hand through his hair, cigarette dangling from his mouth, ash he hasn’t tapped away finally too heavy and falling on his t-shirt. He left his phone in the bedroom. Turned it off because this is their extended weekend and they promised each other they would spend it together. He would probably just call Pete. Pete’s always been good with this shit, with helping him talk this shit out.

He could call Spencer, too.

It’s part of the problem, the whole Spencer thing. Spencer and Brendon being friends or friendly or whatever doesn’t bother Ryan – they were all friends once. He should have come out here. Things would have gone so differently if Spencer came on board. He probably would have really liked Jon. And who knows, maybe Jon would have joined the band officially? And it would be the four of them working together, with Brendon’s voice and charm parading through the airwaves. Ryan meant it when he said he couldn’t do this without them, he just didn’t know at the time to what extent.

He wonders if he could tell all of this to Brendon. He wonders if it would really make any difference at all.

He stubs another cigarette out on the porch floor. He doesn’t remember sitting down against the wall but here he is, surrounded by ash and cigarette butts smoked down to their filters. What’s that line from “Hurt” – my empire of dirt? Johnny Cash covered that song before he died. Ryan could cover it maybe. Next tour.

He yawns, decides it’s time to go back inside. He slips in next to Brendon, stops himself from indulging in the warm skin next to him. 

Things aren’t going Ryan’s way.

He’ll have to do something about that soon.

*

Brendon’s hands are in his hair, tugging fistfuls roughly while their lips collide in a kiss that leaves them both breathless. The room is filled with the mix of their gasps and moaning with all of the windows open. There’s a breeze off the lake that wafts in, but it does nothing to calm the heat in their temporary bedroom.

He’s extra rough and wildly uninhibited the way Ryan always loves him. On top of him, riding him, with his head thrown back now so far that Ryan can only see the long expanse of his throat. He’s always vocal in bed but now, without the knowledge of paper-thin dorm or apartment walls, he’s free to share just how good he feels. How good Ryan makes him feel. 

“You’re fucking incredible,” Ryan breathes, astonished.

“Fuck, _Ryan_ ,” Brendon’s voice breaks on his name in a pleasured cry.

Ryan’s hands grip Brendon’s hips hard enough to leave fingertip shaped bruises in his skin. Good, he thinks. He wants Brendon to feel this, to remember this, when they get home tomorrow.

“You’re so good, so fucking good,” Ryan mumbles. “Fuck baby, fuck I’m so close.”

Brendon nods and wraps a hand around his own leaking cock between them. He’s completely in control, even as wild as he is now, and Ryan lets him be, knowing how much he loves that feeling. Ryan does too – giving his body up completely to Brendon and trusting him to do whatever he wants with it.

Brendon comes back to him, lips attaching to his throat as he keeps going. He strokes himself with one hand, the other squeezing Ryan’s shoulder. They’re both so close now, Brendon panting hot breath into Ryan’s ear. Ryan’s moans get louder as he feels Brendon squeeze around him, streaks of come coating his chest. He pauses, catches his breath, and fucking hell he keeps going and rides Ryan until he comes hard, not far behind.

They’re a sticky and sweaty mess. Ryan can feel the come drying on his chest but he’s not getting out of this bed. Not when Brendon’s got that look on his face. Like he could do this all day, even though they have.

“I’m sleeping the entire ride home tomorrow,” Brendon mumbles into his pillow.

Ryan drops beside him, runs his fingers through his sweat soaked hair. “You deserve it,” he says. “I don’t know how you’re still going now.”

Brendon hums at Ryan’s gentle touches. “We’re too young to tap out after round 3.”

They order takeout from one of the paper menus they found in the kitchen on day 1. Brendon gets pasta carbonara. “Carbo load for Round 4” he says, and Ryan laughs at him but yeah, alright. Round 4 it is.

“I could buy this place,” Brendon says around a mouthful of food. “We could make it our own little private hideaway. Come up once a year like old people.”

“Thought you said we were too young,” Ryan says.

Brendon rolls his eyes. “Fuck like young people, cuddle by the fire like old people.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Ryan laughs.

“I’d buy it for you. For your birthday.”

It takes Ryan a moment to register Brendon’s complete seriousness at the notion. Like that type of grand gesture Ryan would want to receive from anyone. He’s not that kind of guy. He’d never want Brendon to do something so big, let alone would he accept it.

Brendon must see it written all over Ryan’s face because he blushes and says, “I didn’t do it. I’m just saying. Like. I could. If you wanted.”

“I don’t,” Ryan says.

“Okay.”

Yeah, he could. He could take the payout from the label and buy this house and two others probably. He paid off the last of his parents’ mortgage last Christmas. It was a present so grand that Brendon’s father came to the phone to wish him season’s greetings. It was the happiest Brendon had been all year.

They eat the rest of their dinner in silence. When Brendon takes him to bed that night, it’s too soft and sweet and feels like an apology that he never asked for.

*

He says, “I don’t want to do this,” like it’s not his idea. Like he hasn’t been thinking about it since before their weekend (before the tour, if he’s being honest with himself). But he’s not lying because if there were another option, he’d gladly take it.

He says, “I just think it’s the best idea right now. For us.”

Brendon looks at him with anger in those perfect brown eyes and it’s not the reaction Ryan had prepared for the whole drive home. Brendon does that sometimes, surprises him.

“How?” Brendon asks. He’s standing in the doorway like he’s ready to leave right then and there. “How is this the _best_ _for us_ right now?”

Ryan’s shoulders slump and fuck, this wasn’t supposed to be so hard. “It just is, Brendon. We need a break.”

“We just fucking took one!”

“Together. We need a break apart.”

Brendon scoffs. “Yeah, we did one of those already, too.”

Ryan takes one step forward and Brendon covers his arms over his chest, warns him not to come any closer with his eyes. He sighs.

“I love you –“

“Oh, fuck you.”

“I fucking _do_. Don’t do that,” his voice pleads. “I mean it, Bren, I’ve loved you since the moment I met you. But I just…” he trails off because he can’t fucking say what he’s feeling around Brendon, around this person he loves so much that he needs to stay as far away from him if he even thinks he has a chance to be better.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you –“

Brendon moves from the door to their bed. Ryan stands in front of him and watches him fold into this small boy that he hasn’t been in so long.

“You self-sabotage every good fucking thing in your life, Ryan. You know that, right? You make these fucking decisions and everyone is supposed to go ‘okay’ and just go along with whatever you want them to do. You did it with Brent. You did it with Spencer. You’re doing it with me. You’re gonna keep fucking doing this shit and…”

He sighs. He puts his head in his hands and takes a deep breath and it’s everything for Ryan to hold his body in place and not run to his side, stroke his back and his hair and say sorry for everything he’s done and everything he’s going to do. Instead, he stands still and waits.

“Tell you what,” Brendon says when he finally looks up again. His eyes are glassy but no tears. He’s stronger than he looks. “I’ll go. You keep the apartment. You stay here. I’ll throw my shit in a bag and I’ll go. I’ll be in Vegas. When this is over, you can come find me, and that’s where I’ll be.”

No one cries. He tells himself it’s not a break-up. It’s a break. He says it’s the best thing for them both. He watches Brendon pack his shit in duffle bags without either of them saying a word; watches him leave the apartment just as silently. Ryan doesn’t ask him how he got a plane ticket so fast. Ryan doesn’t ask him anything.


	12. I Know You Still Have the Heart of That Small Boy

_Los Angeles: Winter 2011_

Alex drives with all the windows down and classic rock on the radio. The actual radio, not the aux chord or the satellite. There’s a local station that Ryan never remembers the numbers of but it’s programmed into the console as Station 1 and, like all radio stations, they play the same 15 songs on shuffle. But at 5:00 PM every weekday, just as the cubicle crowd is headed home for the day, until 6:30 PM before their wives set the plates for dinner, it’s time to get the Led out. That’s Alex’s favorite – the Led Zeppelin power hour. He cranks up the volume as they drive along to “The Lemon Song” and Alex sings “squeeze me babe, till the juice runs down my leg.” Sometimes the station will play a good Van Halen single, like “Running with the Devil” and Ryan won’t stop himself from pretending to be Eddie Van Halen in the passenger seat. He’ll be hit with the memory of him and Brendon playing along as teenagers for only a moment before Alex does something to make him laugh and forget.

Alex has been good for making Ryan forget.

He’s only here for a few more weeks, just through the winter. He’s decided that New York City winters are overrated. How many times can you watch the tourists skate or crowd around the tree in Rockefeller Center? Plus, it’s too cold to smoke outside and he’s pissed off his landlord one too many times this year to get away with the scent of cigarettes in the hallway.

When Alex invited him out to stay last year, he said no. He had also been invited to spend Christmas Day with Pete and Gabe and William and spent most of the early evening into the nighttime drinking as much as he could, ending with him passed out on Pete’s couch. He woke up to an empty apartment and a note on the fridge saying everyone left but help yourself. Ryan remembered to lock the door on his way out.

These last two weeks in California have been great, though. Alex has other friends he’s introduced Ryan to, and Ryan likes them well enough to enjoy sushi dinners and pool parties, even if he hasn’t attended one since high school. They feel different now.

“You should just leave New York,” Alex says. “Come to LA, man. It’s got it all.”

“If by ‘all’ you mean ‘traffic and heat’ then yeah, sure,” Ryan says.

Alex laughs. His laughs are always too loud to the point that they often feel forced, but they never are. That took a while to get used to.

“Well, you gotta get out of your apartment. That place isn’t doing you any favors.”

Ryan knows what he means but he doesn’t respond.

“You know my friend Z?” he asks. Ryan nods. “She just got a place in the city and she’s looking for a roommate. I think you two would get along, bro. You can’t live in that shitty ass apartment by yourself, eating hot pockets and dry cheerios every day. Might be nice having company.”

Ryan thinks about Z and her long, blonde hair and impossibly full lips. Her sprite-like movements and fairy toned voice, hauntingly gorgeous in a supernatural way. She’s beautiful and interesting and so much like the type of person he’s naturally drawn to. In another world, he would have fallen in love with her on the spot the night they met.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

Alex pulls the car up to their driveway. The radio station plays “In Bloom” by Nirvana and they both wait until the song is over before they get out of the car.

*

Before Alex left New York permanently for LA, Ryan invited him over for a quick drink. He had tried to tidy up the place a bit, put some effort into it. He made his bed and folded the throw blanket over the arm of the couch, fluffed a pillow or two before he hopped in the shower.

Alex brought over a bottle of Jack Daniels and a two-liter of Coke and Ryan blushed because he realized he didn’t have any clean glasses so they drank right out of the bottles instead. Ryan liked it better that way. Less like he was putting on airs. Not that clean glasses were putting on airs. But this was how he lived and he was comfortable drinking out of bottles and cartons and hiring a cleaning service once a month when he couldn’t find a clean pair of socks anymore.

They both enjoyed the booze more than they should have. Ryan watched a deep flush develop from Alex’s neck down to the skin of his chest, just barely peeking through the top few open buttons of his wrinkled navy button down. It made Ryan’s heart race, his own cheeks burn, and he bit his lip watching Alex swallow a gulp of soda to chase down the liquor.

He blamed the booze in the moment, but it would have happened eventually.

Launching himself across the small kitchen table, Ryan grabbed Alex’s collar and pulled their chests together, his lips landing on top of Alex’s own so hard it hurt his teeth. He pressed a kiss to his lips so rough it almost felt like a punch.

Alex froze, brought his hands to Ryan’s jaw and cupped it softly. His lips moved just a tiny bit, kissing back slowly. Ryan’s stomach fluttered and he kissed back, parting his lips in an attempt to deepen it and go further. Alex stayed where he was, unwilling to move any further until he backed away.

Ryan tried to chase his lips, bring them back to his own, but Alex’s hands on his jaw held him still and forced their eyes to meet. He didn’t look angry; he certainly didn’t look turned on. Instead, he looked sad, pitying Ryan just a bit.

“Fuck,” Ryan swore. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“No, no. You’re not stupid, man.”

Tears built up behind Ryan’s eyelids but wouldn’t dare break through. Alex’s hands, still holding him, gently cupped the back of his neck. His thumb brushed against Ryan’s pulse and swept back and forth the way Brendon used to. That was all it took. Ryan collapsed onto the table and groaned, physically and emotionally exhausted.

Alex rubbed his back a little awkwardly, somewhere between patting and petting him. It did make Ryan laugh a little bit, still stuck with his head in his folded arms.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, words slightly muffled by his hidden face.

“Dude, nothing to be sorry for. You’re a good-looking guy and all. Just like. I’m straight.”

Ryan poked his head up from his hiding place and scowled. “Yeah, yeah, no. I, I got that.”

Alex simply smiled at him and passed the bottle down Ryan’s way.

They never talked about the kiss itself, but that night Ryan shared more with Alex than he had with anyone in over a year. Alex listened, nodding appropriately and asking questions as needed while Ryan recounted the years that transpired between him and Brendon and everyone else who crossed their paths.

He never gave advice, but he didn’t run away. The next day he called Ryan to check in the way Spencer would call to check in and it felt like gaining something good. He hadn’t felt like that in some time.

He’s a good friend. Ryan needs a good friend.

Alex gives up his spare bedroom to Ryan, but his house is big enough that it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. Nestled in Echo Park, just far away from the celebrities but close enough to know where they live, it’s the type of house Ryan would live in if he ever came out here for real.

Patrick has a house in LA. So does Pete.

Ryan doesn’t see Pete when they’re both in LA. Not that they’re often both in LA but Ryan’s made a trip or two out here over the last few years and Pete ended up buying a bungalow somewhere Ryan’s never been invited to see. It wasn’t supposed to be awkward after Brendon left for Vegas (for good, Ryan guesses, or something along those lines). But people took sides, in the end. Jon took Ryan’s, so did Alex, though Ryan didn’t expect them to draw a line in the sand by him.

Patrick, of course, sided with Brendon. Pete, of course, sided with Patrick: the unwritten nature of their partnership made clear to Ryan without Pete ever having to say it. Your lover to the left, your music to the right, and you can never have both unless you’re Pete Wentz. Must be nice.

It’s different in New York though. Lots of things are different. And this place, as nice as it is, has the artificiality of subdivisions and neatly lined equal width apart palm trees that Vegas offered. That’s not something Ryan’s ever going to see himself wanting.

He’s lying on his back in his new bed in his temporary stay, guitar on his stomach just a heavy weight while his long fingers pluck meaningless strings. He’s got a few things he’s working on while he’s on hiatus. It’s a good time to take a vacation with Jon in Chicago with Cassie. They’re getting engaged over Christmas this year. He showed Ryan the ring before he left and Ryan had to admit, he couldn’t be happier for the two of them.

His phone rings from the bedside table, interrupting the nothing he was thinking about while staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t recognize the 818 area code but he answers it anyway.

“Hello?” he asks into the phone. His fingers still play nonsense strings.

“It’s Spencer.”

He doesn’t even say hello, like he’s just waiting for Ryan to hang up as soon as he figures out who it is.

Fuck.

“Fuck,” Ryan says. Then, “Is your mom okay?”

“Is my -? Yes, dude, what you think I’d only call you if my mom died?”

Yes. “No. But also why are you calling me?”

Spencer laughs into the phone all nice and easy. “How long are you in LA for?”

“Indefinitely, I guess. A month or two, maybe.” Ryan doesn’t ask how he found out he was in LA. He has an idea who may have told him.

“Cool, cool. Want to grab lunch?”

It’s so normal that it doesn’t feel normal at all. “When?”

“I’m free now.”

“Yeah…yeah so am I.”

It’s not lunch, it’s drinks.

They end up at a bar that Ryan’s never heard of that happens to serve chicken wings. Spencer’s in a booth, a beer and a plate of wings in front of him. He doesn’t wave Ryan over. He doesn’t have to. He looks different. Taller, if that’s even possible, with a neatly trimmed but still thick beard that compliments his blue eyes somehow. His hair is still too long but it doesn’t look messy.

He looks good. He looks like Spencer.

Ryan slides in across from him and takes a wing straight from the bin in front of him without saying hello first. A waitress comes by and takes his drink order and Ryan orders a rum and coke in the middle of the day. Spencer raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t say anything until the waitress leaves.

The first thing he says is, “You look good.”

And Ryan says, “Thanks. So do you.”

Spencer smiles at him and Ryan relaxes instantly because after fifteen years, that smile hasn’t changed at all.

Spencer says he’s in town for work and he drops the bomb that he works for the label, a fact completely hidden to Ryan for probably good reason. He divides his time between LA and Vegas and he’s helping Pete expand because of course Pete is expanding. Just a few more steps before global takeover.

“Brendon got me into it after you guys…whatever,” Spencer trails off at the end and shoves a wing in his mouth to stop him from whatever he was about to say. Ryan’s not buying it.

“After we ‘whatever’, huh? What was, uh, what was Brendon’s version of events?”

Ryan plays with the drink in his glass and sloshes it back and forth a bit, waiting for Spencer to answer and debating if he actually wants to hear what he’s going to say.

Spencer rolls his eyes behind his chicken wing. “You’re both fucking stupid. Like, Brent and I totally knew you two were fucking or whatever in high school. We talked about it all the time. And then when you moved into the dorm it was like…super fucking obvious. I was third wheel every time we hung out. It sucked.”

“That why you didn’t come to New York that time?” Ryan asks.

Spencer’s eyes narrow and he settles into the back of the booth, pushing himself up to full height. “I’m not talking about that with you right now.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Just what I said, Ryan,” he says it just like his mother would and for some reason it works at stopping Ryan from pushing harder.

“Anyway,” Spencer adds, “You should call him.”

Ryan laughs and knocks back the rest of his rum. “No, I shouldn’t.”

Spencer is looking at him with wise eyes that know something Ryan doesn’t. It’s a little unnerving and Ryan finds himself leaning forward on his elbows to get a closer look. Spencer’s gotten better at keeping secrets from being written all over his face the last few years, but he knows something, that’s for sure.

“You should call him, Ryan,” Spencer repeats.

He smiles again and flags the waitress down to refill his beer. He asks Ryan if he wants some more chicken wings and Ryan’s not hungry but sure, yeah, chicken wings and beer sound good. Order me one of those, too.

*

Alex’s car isn’t in the driveway when Ryan pulls up. He isn’t home a lot of the time – they pass each other in the kitchen some mornings or down the hallway some nights. Ryan would be lying if he said it didn’t bother him at least a little bit of the time, but tonight he’s grateful for the hollow space. 

Ryan’s body is warm from the alcohol against the breezy temperature of Los Angeles at night. It’s the floaty type of drunk feeling he used to get as a teenager, the one that made him feel like his blood was made of bubbles and his head was lighter than his body. He chalks it up to beer and Spencer instead of hard liquor and being alone. Ryan hates when he gets that drunk, all by himself, his heart a heavy stone sunk in his chest. It’s too reminiscent of a person he doesn’t want to become.

He peeks into the window around the side of the house. All of the lights are off and it’s empty inside and Ryan’s foot slips on something – a rogue shoelace – and he falls on his ass with a thud. It’s alright, he tells himself, and he laughs as he stumbles through the backyard.

There’s a fire pit in the backyard that reminds him of a much grander version of Brent Wilson’s. Alex’s has these long, wooden chairs that one could lay out and nap on if they wanted. Brent’s were shorter little plastic folding chairs that were so hard to get out of.

During that summer, all the girls would flock to that fire pit as soon as Brent’s brother would light it up. Dusk would settle across Vegas and the scorching heat would simmer away, leaving a dry chill in its aftermath. The fire would light, and the party would reignite as well and the girls would find a lap to sit on, adding an uncomfortable weight to the already uncomfortable chairs.

Ryan sprawls on Alex’s long folding chair. There’s no fire by his feet but there could be. He wonders if Spencer made it back to his hotel okay. He wonders if Spencer wants to come over and light a fire with him. Alex might not come home tonight at all and Ryan doesn’t want to be alone.

Muscle memory types in a number he’s known since he was a teen and he lets the line ring and ring against his ear.

_You have reached the voice mail box of…_

“Hey, uh, it’s Ryan. I’m uh, I don’t know, man.

“It’s a really beautiful night for a fire. Remember those fires Brent used to have in his backyard? All those girls that would try and sit in your lap and take you home with them? And you never went, you know, even the really pretty ones. The ones with the dark hair and the tiny frames, you always looked at them and they always looked at you and you would blush so hard when you got caught. You looked so cute, you know? So cute. I always thought you were cute.

“I never told you this but I was so jealous of all those girls. I never thought you’d look at me like that. Spencer said he knew but like, how could he know? I didn’t know. I didn’t know until I kissed you right before senior year started. Remember that? Remember we were fighting and I kissed you? Right against the door of Brent’s bedroom. Every fight we have should end with me kissing you.

“I don’t know if you know. You probably know. Maybe not. I’m not in New York. I’m gonna go back but I’m not sure when or where I’ll be. But I want to see you again. Not in Vegas. Maybe here. Maybe in New York. Wherever you want to be.

“It’s early but. I’m going to bed. Might sleep outside it’s just so nice out. Alex has these chairs, and they’re just. I don’t know.

“It’s Ryan. Good night. I miss you.”


	13. I'll Never Know You Like I Know Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw: crying, mentions of death

Ryan’s not a crier.

He was as a really little kid. He’d cry and cry over nothing – “for no reason” he would say. He would just feel sad and he never knew how to explain why (and as an adult he has a few ideas as to what it was: something to do with his mom’s abrupt absence) so he would just cry. He has very few memories of his dad consoling him, sober and fatherly with a hand on his shoulder that would turn into a tight hug. They were good hugs. They were strong and filled with emotion and protection. Ryan’s own hugs aren’t like that now, at least he doesn’t think they are.

He can remember the last time he cried – really cried, not the few tear drops that sting the corner of his eyes when a very heartfelt Budweiser commercial comes on. Dad was gone for three days. Days 1 and 2 were fine, no different than they ever were. Ryan woke up on Sunday and was ready to find his dad passed out in the recliner. He was going to wake him up gingerly and pull his church clothes out so that they could head over to Mass and Father Miguel could forgive him for the bender he went on and they would forget all about it until next Sunday, when they’d do it all over again.

The living room was empty as was the driveway when Ryan woke up. He was hit with a feeling of dread he hadn’t been familiar with since he was a little boy. His heart squeezed tightly in his chest, lungs deflated, and warm, wet tears welled up behind his eyes.

He shook his head, shook his whole body, and decided seven in the morning was a fine time to see if Spencer wanted to hang out today. A smile made its way across his face, his red eyes forgotten, on his way to the neighbor’s house. He knocked lightly but firm enough to alert the house of his presence.

Ginger opened the door with a frown. He can remember her wearing an oversized Colorado sweatshirt and sweatpants which was so unlike her every other time Ryan had seen her. She was always so put together in an endless colorful array of dresses or long skirts. She didn’t look at Ryan right away but instead her eyes darted next door to the empty driveway. Her face crumpled and Ryan felt a lump in his throat form.

“Is uhm, I know it’s early. But. Is Spencer up?”

She didn’t answer but offered a small smile instead. “Come in, Ry. Did you eat?”

He shook his head, eyes staring at his shoes. “No, that’s okay I’ll be back later.”

Ginger had grabbed him by the shoulder and wrapped him beneath her arm like a bird’s wing, ushering him inside. The door had shut behind them and Ryan collapsed into her side then and there. Her other arm came to pull him into a proper hug, her hands lightly brushing his hair, her voice whispering in his ear. “Hey, hey it’s okay. You stay here, baby, you stay here, and he’ll come home okay? He’ll come home soon.”

He sniffled into her armpit, feeling every bit of the little kid he used to be. She pulled him up from the floor and settled him on the couch, even covered him with a blanket that he wrapped around his shoulders. She made him eggs and toast and orange juice. He took a few bites between trying not to cry and actually crying and Ginger just let him. She sat on the couch next to him, pulling him into her side when the crying got too much, saying nothing but positive soothes that may as well have been magic.

By the time Spencer woke up, Ryan was done. At least, he felt done in that moment. The sight of his best friend straightened his spine and stopped the last of the tears.

“Yo,” Spencer greeted. “You good?”

“M’good,” Ryan said with a sniffling cough.

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Ryan’s sure that was the last time. That’s not to say that the events between then and now didn’t warrant a good cry. Spencer would probably tell him he’s long overdue for one and he’d probably be right. And if he had a warm body to curl up against, hands softly carding through his hair and whispering in dulcet tones that everything would be okay, then maybe Ryan would cry a little more. It’s not the crying that provides the relief; it’s burying your head in someone’s neck and hearing them tell you everything you need to hear.

*

It becomes a habit. Brendon Urie’s voicemail becomes the secret container Ryan always needed. He’s not always sloppy drunk when he does it, but he’s at list a little drunk each time the idea springs to his mind. He’ll never hear them played back for him, and he’s got half a mind that by the third voicemail with no response that Brendon’s just deleting them as they come. Couldn’t be bothered to listen, couldn’t be bothered to respond. So really, what’s the harm here?

He’s sloppy drunk tonight. Back in New York, sprawled out on Z’s uncomfortable couch, situated beneath the large windows next to the fireplace that never turns on.

“One day I’m gonna light this thing,” Ryan slurs into the phone. He’s hanging off the side, one foot on the floor, his arm just hovering above. “Remember the cabin on Lake George? We never lit that fireplace either. So stupid. You ever think we missed out on stuff? I mean, yeah some stuff but like other stuff too?”

Z emerges from the bedroom in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and her underwear and if Ryan weren’t pouring his heart into his ex-boyfriend’s voicemail, he’d be pouring it out to her. She’s ethereal, a blonde braid like a halo around her head. Her makeup is still on but the night has worn her lipstick down to a patchy stain.

She turns to look at him and Ryan drops the phone to the floor with a clatter. He’s pretty sure he just cracked the screen. Fuck.

“Planning on coming to bed anytime soon?” she asks, eyebrow raised and hand on her hip.

“What?” he asks. “It’s early.”

“It’s 3:30, Ryan.”

He scratches against the back of the couch, phone forgotten on the floor, as he starts to lift himself up and sit properly. She takes the invitation to sit next to him and crosses her legs in the corner of the couch, sets a gentle hand on his knee.

“Who were you talking to?” she asks. Her doe eyes are filled with concern that Ryan doesn’t feel he deserves. He casts his eyes down, plays with his hands in his lap.

“No one,” he lies. Is it a lie? Does it count if he’s talking but no one’s listening?

“Lying isn’t a pretty color on you,” she says. Her hand comes up to grab his cheek and holds it gently.

Sometimes he thinks she’s flirting with him. Sometimes he thinks he should flirt back.

“If you want to talk to someone who will actually talk back, I’m always here you know. I didn’t ask you to move in with me so you could eat all my food and not pay rent,” she offers him a smile and her voice is tinted with laughter at the edges. It doesn’t make the words she says any less true.

She squeezes his knee and lifts herself up easily off the couch. She practically floats as she walks down the hall to her bedroom.

He doesn’t follow her. He almost wishes he did. He thinks about how easy it would be to fall in love with her if he just let himself. He’ll have to tell Brendon’s voicemail about that another night.

*

The hospital calls on Thursday to let Ryan know his dad died. He says “thank you” and hangs up. “Thank you” – that’s not what he was supposed to say. He probably needed to answer some questions about burials and funeral homes or something.

He texts Spencer and Spencer does the right thing by not calling him immediately. He says _We’re on it_ and Ryan sits on the chaise lounge in Z’s living room and stares at the fireplace for a few hours while he thinks about his options here.

He doesn’t drink though. He’s done drinking, at least for now. He plays Paul McCartney’s _Tug of War_ and turns his phone off the rest of the day.

*

He always thought talking to Spencer again would be awkward but even after Ryan leaves for New York and Spencer goes back to Vegas, it’s so easy to slip into their old friendship. It’s not the same friendship it was when they were teenagers, but they aren’t the same people they were when they were teenagers. It all works out.

He’s also pretty good at his job from what Ryan can tell. He finds this group of kids from Vegas (“fucking Vegas, dude! They’re just like us!”) that call themselves The Cab and he convinces Brendon and Patrick to sing on their first single. He didn’t tell Ryan that Brendon was on the track when he sent it over – just a .mp3 sent in an email titled “You’ll Like This” or something equally as vague. Ryan found his head bopping and toe tapping at the chorus. It reminds him a bit of the music he used to write when he was a teenager, the songs that they were going to make under a different band name, when they were also just four kids from Vegas.

His heart stops the first time he hears Brendon’s voice on the speakers. It’s a welcome surprise that leaves Ryan feeling warm and relaxed. He plays Brendon’s album (Patrick’s album, Pete’s album, whatever) after.

He tells all of his thoughts to Brendon’s voicemail completely sober that night, hidden in his bedroom with the door locked, lying on top of his blankets.

“I guess it just made me sentimental. You make me sentimental. You probably don’t think of me that way but that’s the truth. I listen to you and I listen to songs like those and it’s not just nostalgia, I promise. I can feel it in my heart, it’s something like love. Sentiment, I guess.”

He hangs up there. He can hear the piano in the parlor going and Z’s throaty voice softly wavering through the walls. He thinks about joining her. He thinks their voices would sound beautiful together.

He plays with his phone. He opens Twitter and closes it, opens it again, scrolls through a couple of pointless updates and closes it again. He finds himself humming the song Spencer shared with him and he smiles. He’s proud of Brendon. He sounds great. Maybe he is great. He deserves greatness, doesn’t he?

There’s a three-year gap that Ryan’s brain fills with pockets of information gathered from select intel. They released another album that was okay, not as good as the first one, but the single is fucking everywhere still. Critics didn’t like it but Pete always says no one makes music for critics. But they played bigger venues this time around and only in major cities and Ryan thought once about going to see them play. Pete could have let him backstage. It’s not like he would have been turned away.

He didn’t go. He played the album and he liked it and hasn’t played it since. Not until now.

He texts Spencer. _I like The Cab. Send me more._

Z continues to play until Ryan falls asleep in his bed. It’s still so weird to think of this place as his – this grand, beautiful apartment that feels ancient and empty, weird décor from thrift stores and estate sales and a clawfoot tub. Just last month he was in LA.

But there are so many ghosts haunting that old studio apartment and Alex was right, it’s nice having company, even if it’s just playing through the walls.

*

Jon calls on Monday to say he’s staying in Chicago permanently.

“It’s nothing against you, man. It’s just…I dunno I love working with you dude, but this isn’t a band so much as it’s a side project for me, you know? I mean what are we doing? We haven’t even hung out together and like, I guess that’s a sign, right?”

Ryan says, “Right.”

“Just uh, just take care of yourself, Ryan. If you’re ever in Chicago –“

“Yeah, man. If I’m ever in Chicago.”

They hang up there. Any details he needs to go over, he can do that on his own with Pete. They’re longtime friends, longer than Ryan and Pete have been friends, he thinks. Pete will take care of it. 

Ryan’s mouth feels dry. He thinks about the bottle of whiskey in the cabinet but Z opens the door and he looks up at her with expectant eyes like maybe she can cure the loneliness he’s been feeling for days (weeks, months, years) with her presence, her time.

She tosses her keys on the kitchen counter and shrugs her coat off to hang on the coat rack. Her blonde hair is tucked underneath a forest green beret and those lips of hers painted bright red.

“You look sad,” she remarks from the hall.

Her long legs carry her over to the couch with a small sway. Ryan doesn’t take his eyes off her until she slides in easily next to him. He stays silent and watches her tilt her head bird-like while she toes her heels off and kicks them into the corner to get a better fit next to him.

She lifts her arm and grabs him by the shoulder and it’s the most familiar touch Ryan’s felt in years that he leans into it easily. He automatically cuddles into her side, legs up to his chest, and she pulls him into her even more closely. Her hand moves to his hair and she plays with the longer pieces at the nape of his neck tenderly. She’s breathing deeply, in and out, in and out, and he follows her breathing instinctually. He can feel tension in his temples, pounding through is head like the roar of an ocean that floods his ears and mutes everything around him. Something explosive begins to grow within him making his chest swell and his cheeks grow hot.

Z whispers, “Hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s all okay.”

The pounding in his head increases as he cries with what feels like his entire body. He lets out sobs that break his chest and back with their intensity. There’s about a decade of hurt and fear and anxiety that’s built into this one moment that has finally cracked him in two.

She keeps her hands on him, gently running her fingers up and down his spine. Another arm encircles him and holds him steady and she keeps telling him to breathe and it’s going to be okay. She takes a deep breath, holds him against her chest, and he inhales with her, exhales with her. Keep breathing, it’s gonna be okay, you just stay here it’s all gonna be okay.

On the coffee table, his phone beeps a loud incoming message just as the sobs fade into something manageable. It forces their bodies apart and Z grabs his face in her hands before he can be distracted. Her thumbs drag across his under eyes, pulling tears away. She looks like she’s shed a tear or two herself and it breaks Ryan’s heart to think she could ever cry for him.

“Better?” she asks with an angelic smile. Ryan nods. “Good. I’ll make tea.”

“I don’t drink tea,” Ryan says. It feels like glass is caught in his throat.

“I don’t care,” she calls from the kitchen.

She doesn’t put a kettle on the stove (do they even have a kettle?) but throws two mugs in the microwave and leans against the counter. She doesn’t ask questions that Ryan’s not ready to answer but she keeps her eyes on him like she’s afraid he’ll shatter if she looks away.

There’s a tea bag still in his mug that she offers him. He shrugs his shoulders but takes a sip anyway. It’s alright. His phone beeps again on the table and Z nods her permission for him to check who it is.

Pete texts him _Hey, you doing okay? Wanna come out to the bar tonight? Drinks on me._

Z peers over his shoulder and reads the text with a frown. “You feel up to a night of drinking after…?”

“I kinda feel obligated to,” he admits.

“Why? ‘Cause he’s your boss?”

“Friend,” Ryan corrects. “And I’ve been a shitty friend to him for, fuck, longer than I would have put up with.” He runs a hand over his face in exhaustion. “He’s trying to do something nice for me. I should stop self-sabotaging shit like that.”

“You do that a lot? Self-sabotage?”

“Someone pointed it out to me awhile back, yeah,” he admits.

Z sighs into her tea. “Okay, well. Have fun. I’ll be home tonight, ya know, if you need me. Or whatever.”

He flashes her what is probably an unconvincing smile as he walks back to his bedroom. The skin of his arm feels warm where she held him. He texts Pete back that he’ll be there and Pete wants to meet him around 10 which is fine but just a few hours away. He takes a shower where he manages not to think and towel dries his hair before getting ready – it’s not even 7. He leaves the apartment anyway, shrugs on his favorite wool coat and holds his keys in his pocket like a security blanket as he walks the streets of New York.

It’s only March but it’s still a frigid cold with the sun gone from the sky. He turns up the collar of his coat against a small wind and he keeps walking to keep the blood flow going. His brain is empty of anything but his footsteps on the sidewalk and the chill in his bones. He looks down and watches his feet take him wherever they want until he looks up and starts recognizing the same buildings he used to see out his window every morning.

There’s a bar just passed the park he used to hide out to write in and he plays with his keys in his pocket as he stands at the front door and debates whether he should go in or not. He looks to his left, his right, then back to his left again. No one would recognize him anyway but he pushes against the red door and walks in one foot at a time nearly on tip-toe.

It’s dark the way a seedy bar is supposed to be dark. A brunette bartender in a tight black tee wipes down glasses and smiles at her patrons: fat, older men who are balding and shoot her toothy grins waiting for her to bat those eyelashes their way.

He looks down the edge of the bar and finds what he assumes is an empty spot all the way at the end. There’s an empty glass that the pretty bartender hasn’t removed yet but he sits anyway and waits for her to notice him. He enters his pocket and grabs his wallet, feeling 17 again and grabbing a 20-dollar bill to flag her down, when his phone buzzes with a text from fucking Brendon.

_You’re in my spot._

Ryan looks down at his phone in confusion until a hand falls atop his shoulder that forces him to turn around.

There he stands, perfect smile gracing his face. He did something different with his hair. It looks good, great, even. He looks older, an odd thought. Ryan watches him bring his hand to his hair, run his fingers through it, and he catches the glimpse of a tattoo on his forearm that wasn’t there before: piano keys and flowers.

But he is smiling. That’s something.


	14. I Long to See That Look Upon Your Face

It’s like running into some kid from high school. An awkward reunion of the “oh hey I didn’t know you were in town” sort.

“What are you drinking anyway?” Brendon asks.

He moves his coat that Ryan didn’t notice draped over the chair next to him so he can take a seat. He grabs the glass that sits in front of Ryan’s face and gestures it at the pretty bartender who sends him a winning smile. She still hasn’t taken Ryan’s order.

“I’m not,” Ryan says. “I just got here. Needed to pass the time.”

Brendon hums and they both look down at their empty glasses in silence. Ryan can smell his body wash and his stomach churns as he wonders if Brendon’s skin still tastes the same.

“Heard about your dad,” Brendon says. His eyes are still fixed ahead and so are Ryan’s. “You doing alright?”

“No,” Ryan admits. “Not because of him.”

Brendon turns his head and he cocks his eyebrow in question. The bartender brings over the vodka soda with lime Brendon silently ordered.

“Jon quit,” Ryan says.

The bartender sets a rum and coke in front of Ryan that he didn’t ask for and he didn’t hear Brendon ask for it either. He drinks it anyway while Brendon stares in disbelief.

“When?” he asks.

“A couple hours ago,” Ryan says.

“Jesus, fuck.”

“Yep.”

“What did Pete say?”

“Don’t know yet.”

They both drink.

Ryan’s nearly done with his and he tips it at the bartender who still isn’t paying him attention. Brendon sees this and raises his arm and fucking winks at her which is supposed to be cheesy but for some reason when he does it, it’s fucking charming. She smiles and nods and Ryan finishes his glass so she can take it away.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Brendon asks.

“I live here,” Ryan says.

Brendon shakes his head and chuckles low. “You’re such an asshole. What are you doing here at _this_ bar? I thought you were meeting up with Pete.”

“He told you we were meeting up, huh?”

Brendon shrugs and turns back to his drink. His shoulders are slumped and Ryan’s been watching his smile fall inch by inch as they tepidly sit next to each other.

“I lost it today,” he begins. “Like, complete fucking mess, you know? And I left the apartment and walked around until it eventually led me here. I almost didn’t come in. Trying not to drink so much.”

“I see that’s going well,” Brendon notes. His eyes are a clouded mix of judgment and understanding that make Ryan uneasy.

“Yeah well, you said you were buying.”

“I never said that.”

“It was implied.”

Brendon laughs but it’s not the laugh he used to share. There’s a hit of something bitter underneath it that Ryan doesn’t like to hear.

“I probably would have heard from you tonight one way or another,” Brendon mumbles.

It takes a second for Ryan to register what he means and then he feels his face burn. He turns to look at Brendon, halfway through his drink, and he smiles.

“So, you have been listening to my voicemails,” he says.

Brendon blushes quickly a flash of red. He mirrors Ryan’s smile and they both laugh and it’s not the guffaws they used to do but at least this time it’s genuine.

“I have them all saved if you ever want to listen to them,” Brendon tells him.

“ _Fuck_ no,” he laughs. “I’m so sorry for all of those.”

“Don’t be,” Brendon says. “You said some nice things in there.”

“Oh?”

“Like I said, if you ever want to listen to them.”

There’s a warmth that blossoms between them as they trade looks between sips of alcohol. People file in from outside and begin to crowd the bar, causing a chaotic noise to develop around them. But Ryan’s not noticing anything other than the way Brendon’s shoulders relax and press into his own as they drink and laugh together like the last few years never happened.

*

They keep touching.

Brendon’s hand comes up on to Ryan’s shoulder and squeezes. Ryan’s hand migrates to the small of Brendon’s back to steady him atop the bar stool. Brendon leans his head to the side with a laugh and his hair tickles Ryan’s cheek. He can smell his shampoo; he dips in to sniff it as clandestinely as possible but he knows Brendon notices it when he cuddles just a little bit closer.

They keep drinking, too.

Ryan’s lost track of how many he’s had. He switches to beer because Brendon says, “liquor before beer you’re in the clear, right?” and then laughs with his whole body. Brendon’s still drinking vodka sodas because he can handle it (“You sure about that?” “You have no idea how I’ve been building up my tolerance the last couple years, Ross.”) but his speech is a little slurred now and Ryan orders him a water that he doesn’t touch.

Pete sends a text at 12:05 saying _You still coming?_ And Ryan swears, angry with himself. Self-sabotage or whatever.

“Fuck, dude. I lost track of time. How long have we been drinking?”

Brendon shrugs. “Few hours, why? What’samatter?”

“I promised Pete I’d hang out with him tonight.” He looks at Brendon’s state in the bar with his messed hair and eyes half-lidded, a lopsided smile and messy collar. “But I’m not leaving you here like this.”

“We’re not leaving. Bars close at 4.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Don’t have to go home but we can’t stay here.”

Brendon snorts, “Says you.”

He takes Brendon by the hand, gentle and familiar, and laces their fingers together. Brendon looks down at their joined hands and frowns like this isn’t right. And sure, it’s not right, but it’s not feeling as wrong as it should be.

Brendon licks his lips and takes the chance to meet Ryan’s eyes. Ryan’s smile is polite, he’s trying here, he really is. This isn’t supposed to be anything. To be fair, it wasn’t supposed to be years of silence and grudge holding like it has been and if everything had gone exactly to plan, then Ryan knows this wouldn’t be anything.

But the want in Brendon’s eyes and the butterflies in Ryan’s stomach are making it something.

“Yeah, okay,” Brendon sighs like he’s admitting defeat. “My hotel isn’t that far.”

“That’s…we could go to another bar,” Ryan offers. He’s still trying here and Brendon’s making it so difficult.

“I don’t think we can,” Brendon says, voice barely above a whisper even in the crowded bar.

Ryan nods and Brendon throws a few bills on the counter of the bar. His other hand is still being held by Ryan and he does that thumb swoop across Ryan’s knuckles. Fuck, Ryan missed that. Their hands release so they can put on their coats and slip out of the bar. They come back together, two magnetized energies, the moment they get outside.

Brendon pulls Ryan to the right and Ryan follows, his heartbeat hammering in his chest. Brendon’s got a smile on his face that Ryan cannot possibly match. He wonders what they look like together, older now with their fingers interlaced as they walk down a street they walked down hundreds of times.

Neither of them says a word, content to listen to the sounds of the city and hold hands. Ryan remembers them in the breezeway of UNLV, a lifetime ago, thrilled at being able to do just this. He remembers that summer before senior year, hiding under blankets, afraid of someone waking in and seeing them, naked and exposed. Their arms cocooning them, keeping them safe.

It’s a nice hotel but it’s still a hotel. Ryan wants to say something about how Brendon must be sick of staying in hotels, what with the touring and the stays in LA and all of that. But he stays silent and chooses to live in the memory of when they were teenagers just happy to be in each other’s company.

Brendon’s tugging him through the lobby and into the elevator and their hands are still stuck together. Brendon turns, his back against the wall of the elevator, and he pulls again. Ryan obliges but remains cautious while Brendon takes his other hand. They aren’t looking at each other. Brendon’s thumb sweeps and sweeps across dry knuckles.

The elevator dings and the doors open. Brendon takes a deep breath before taking the first step out and into the hall. Ryan drags behind; his mind loops a constant refrain of “stop, stop, stop” but he keeps walking.

Brendon’s room is all the way at the end of the hall and their hands finally disconnect so he can find the key card somewhere in his pocket. Ryan shoves his hands in his own pockets as he looks around the hallway like he’s planning his escape. He sees the green light flash out of the corner of his eye. Brendon’s breath hitches in excitement to let them in and his hand wraps around Ryan’s wrist to tug him inside.

The door slams and Ryan’s body slams up against it. He’s seen that feral look before, an intensity like a roaring fire in Brendon’s eyes. Hands on his hips grab hungrily and Ryan gasps despite himself which Brendon takes as an invitation.

His lips feel the same though tonight they taste like the sweetness of vodka, the tang of lime. It disguises the taste that’s never left Ryan’s memory. He tells himself this is okay. A kiss is okay. A kiss isn’t going to hurt anyone. He grabs Brendon’s neck and Brendon groans, slides his tongue into Ryan’s mouth like he wants to do nothing else. His hands move from his hips to the front of his belt buckle and he starts to undo it when Ryan pulls back.

A kiss is okay. This isn’t a kiss anymore.

“You are very drunk,” Ryan whispers against his lips.

“So are you,” Brendon says. He angles his head to kiss Ryan again but Ryan turns his head before their lips can connect.

Brendon lets go and takes a step back. “What the fuck?”

“This is a bad idea, Brendon.”

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Why is it okay for you to make decisions drunk and not me?”

Ryan flinches. “What does that mean?”

There are tears welling in Brendon’s eyes. He looks scared and unsure of himself and Ryan hates that this is his fault. Again.

“You can get drunk and pour your heart out to me in a fucking voicemail whenever you want but when we see each other after, fuck, three years, I can’t do the same? That’s not fucking fair.”

“You’re not pouring anything. You’re trying to fuck me.” Ryan’s hands ball into fists by his side and he’s proud of himself for not raising his voice.

It’s the same fight they have always had. Brendon’s needling and poking and prodding to get a reaction out of Ryan and Ryan’s not going to give in because he doesn’t want to fucking fight anymore. He didn’t want to fight in the first place.

Nothing’s changed. For either of them.

Brendon’s breathing hard through his nostrils and he’s biting his lower lip like he’s holding back from saying what he really feels. Ryan’s back is still against the hotel room door and he moves forward to take a seat on the bed. He pats the empty space next him and Brendon’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.

Ryan pats again. “Come sit, please.”

Brendon does so. His body collapses next to Ryan and he can’t help but rest his head on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan lets him, even leans into it just a little bit.

“I missed you so much,” Brendon says.

“Missed?” Ryan asks.

“Sometimes I still miss you. Not as much as I did when I left. You’ve been this big constant thing in my life – like, think about it. We fell in love when we were teenagers, and we went through some big shit together. I wouldn’t have toured the fucking world if it weren’t for you. I owe you so much for that.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Ryan says.

“I’m going solo,” Brendon tells him. “Well, kind of. I met this guy –“ Ryan looks down at Brendon and frowns. “– no like, not like that. He’s been helping me write my own shit, you know? He’s not…it’s not you. It’s different. Trying to convince Spencer to join me.”

Ryan chuckles. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks,” Brendon says sincerely.

“You were always better than me,” Ryan says.

“Not better,” Brendon says. “Different. Don’t say better. You’re better at a lot of things than I am.”

“Name one,” Ryan says.

“No, because you know what they are already. I’m not here for a Ryan Ross pity party. You turned me down, I get to throw the party this time.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says. “I’m not trying to turn you down. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

Brendon hums. He stirs against Ryan’s side, his head still leaning on his shoulder. Ryan thinks about pressing a kiss to his hair – just a friendly peck meant to be comforting. But then Brendon’s hand starts to creep up Ryan’s thigh, slow and teasing. He settles by Ryan’s groin and squeezes his inner thigh. Ryan doesn’t move.

“I dream about you,” Brendon whispers into his neck. “All the time. I dream about us being together. I wake up hard and I wish you were next to me.”

Ryan swallows thickly. “Stop it,” he warns.

“You don’t dream about me?” Brendon asks.

He tilts his chin up to look at Ryan’s face and fuck, Ryan wants to kiss him, wants to take him here on these hotel sheets. He could connect their lips and lay Brendon down, crawl on top of him and kiss every single inch of his body and it would be perfect. It would be the sweetest goodbye. A parting gift to each other.

“I don’t,” Ryan lies. “Not anymore.”

He moves then to get up. Brendon falters a bit at the loss of weight grounding him but he catches himself.

Ryan pulls the covers back from the edge of the bed and Brendon gets in without being told to.

“Get some sleep, B,” Ryan whispers and turns out the light.

He doesn’t go straight to the apartment when he leaves the hotel. He passes by the old park and takes a seat on the bench he used to claim as his own. His phone’s battery is low but he opens the Notes app and starts writing how he’s feeling. It just sort of comes out, flows freely the way a lot of words haven’t been able to lately. His thumbs tap on the touch screen and he types out so much that he reads back and edits, cuts into stanzas, adds in refrains. He can hear the music like he hasn’t been able to.

It stays with him until he gets back to Z’s apartment and he hears it in his head until he finally falls asleep, alone and in his own bed.

*

It’s noon when Ryan wakes up to a knocking on his bedroom door. Z, no doubt, wanting to know where he was all night. If he’s okay. And he’ll be damned if they’re going to talk about it. Not today, not ever.

The knocking continues and Ryan groans, rolling out of bed. “Give me like, two minutes, I’ll be right out, I promise.”

The knob turns as Ryan gets the words out and he’s not as surprised as he should be to see Brendon walking in. He looks alright, maybe a little tired. He’s smiling but shyly.

“What are you doing here?” Ryan asks.

“I’m on my way out,” Brendon says. “Back home. But uhm –“

“You could have called, you know,” Ryan says. He turns to his dresser and pulls out a pair of jeans, suddenly aware of how he must look in an old tee and boxers.

“I could have,” Brendon says. “Jesus, you don’t make anything easy.”

Ryan throws his jeans on and runs his fingers through his hair, attempting to calm it down after hours of sleep. Brendon’s just standing in the doorway still and Ryan ushers them both out of his room and into the living room. Z isn’t home it looks like.

“Who let you in?” Ryan asks.

“Oh, uhm. Z? She was on her way out anyway. She said to tell you she’ll be back with food.”

Ryan nods. He wants a cigarette so bad he starts to gnaw on his lower lip. He looks away from Brendon and notices two black duffle bags by the door.

“Those yours?” he asks, chin gesturing to the door.

“Yeah, uhm. I’m not staying here long,” Brendon says.

At that he gets up and Ryan follows his movements. They stand there in the middle of Z’s living room. Brendon blinks at him for a moment and then smiles again, offering his hand. Ryan doesn’t take it.

“You were right, last night. And I’m here to thank you. And apologize. But also thank you. We would have made a big mistake and just…”

He juts his hand forward again for Ryan to take and he does so, cautiously. They shake hands, up down up down, and then they let go. Brendon turns to grab his bags from the doorway, slings one over each shoulder.

“I’ll be seeing you,” Brendon says. He doesn’t wait for Ryan to say anything before he turns back to the door again, shutting it behind him.

Ryan sits back down, a little shocked but okay. He remembers his cigarettes sitting on the kitchen counter and he grabs one, lights it before he can remember to open the window. When he looks out and over, he sees Brendon getting into the back seat of a black Honda Civic before driving away.

Z isn’t too far behind. “I brought bagels!” she shouts from the doorway.

Ryan turns to her and smiles behind his cigarette.

He watches a few cars drive by before his mind drifts to the words he wrote last night. Words that might have made a difference either this morning or last night or in a cabin in Lake George.

“Hey Z,” Ryan asks. “If I wrote something, would you sing it for me?”

Z looks up from where she’s plating their breakfast and she puts a hand over her heart.

“You know I’d be honored,” she tells him.

Ryan stubs out his cigarette in the little green ashtray Z is always telling him to use. They sit shoulder to shoulder on the piano bench and Ryan begins playing though he can admit, he’s certainly not the most skilled pianist. It’s a little rough but he sings the middle along with the lyrics for Z to hear until she starts to follow along with her own voice. They harmonize well together and Ryan’s always loved her timbre but he loves it more singing his lyrics.

They play and sing and Ryan feels like he may be able to really move on now. His rock star dreams haven’t been dashed just yet. His time is just beginning.


	15. I'm Not Stuck, I'm Staying

_Las Vegas, Nevada: Present Day_

Spencer sits on the sofa in his mom and dad’s living room and starts up the Xbox. It’s hard to imagine that he’s in his thirties when he looks so teenaged now. Ryan sits next to him and picks up a controller like he’s been zapped back into the ninth grade somehow. The green background and white logo show up on the screen and Ryan settles into the same couch the Smiths’ have had for the last thirty years, at least.

“Brendon texted me,” Ryan says, eyes still glued to the television as Spencer hits the menu.

“Yeah, he called while you were sleeping,” Spencer tells him.

“You didn’t think to wake me up?”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “No, dude why the fuck would I?”

Ryan groans but the game starts and he’s got to shift focus on what’s happening on the screen.

“Besides, he was busy with Dallon. Didn’t think you needed to hear all of that,” Spencer says.

“Thought you said there was nothing going on between the two of them,” Ryan replies.

“Thought _you_ said you were done using me to spy on Brendon’s personal life.”

Well, Spencer’s got him there.

“There’s nothing going on there. If he wants to call you, he’ll call you.”

Spencer’s words don’t do anything to assuage Ryan’s creeping suspicions but he’ll have to take his word for it for now.

“In the meantime, I’m gonna kick your ass if you don’t start paying attention.”

*

In hindsight, it must have been hard for Pete to kick Ryan off the label.

He invited Ryan over to his apartment in the city, one of the rare days that Pete was checking in on his east coast office, the one that Ryan helped him build a decade ago. He’s glad Pete didn’t invite him to the office. He knows now how much Ryan hated that fucking desk.

His apartment was nicer than Z’s, even a bit bigger, and Ryan shuddered to think about just how expensive Pete’s rent must be for a place he didn’t even sleep in more than 2 weeks at a time. He might as well just book a hotel at that rate.

“I feel like we never see each other anymore,” Pete had said.

He handed Ryan a beer as they sat on Pete’s couch. The place was modern, an electric fireplace mounted to the wall and a flat screen television mounted above that. Ryan thought about how complicated it must have been to hide all of those wires.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m sorry about that,” Ryan said.

“Nah, don’t be. Takes two to tango, right?”

“I guess so,” Ryan agreed.

Pete had always been handsome but there in the soft light of his marbleized apartment, Ryan was able to see how much he had aged since the night they met. Still handsome, almost impish grin permanently pressed upon his lips, but with lines around his mouth and eyes that weren’t there when Pete was twenty-four. His body was still lean and energetic, his arms and chest seemingly unaged. They could have hooked up dozens of times throughout the years and they never did.

“How come you and I never got together?” Ryan asked, his voice sounding thoughtful.

Pete choked on his beer. “Dude!”

“I’m serious. You never thought about it?”

Pete let his laughter die down as he played with the label of his beer bottle, condensation forcing it to curl up at its edges.

“Yeah, I thought about it. Mostly after Mikey and I broke up. But you were with Brendon and you were happy and then I got with Patrick and I was happy. Am happy, still.”

“Good,” Ryan said. “That’s good. I’m glad you’re happy. You deserve it.”

Pete smiled at Ryan like he was still thinking about how happy he truly was. And Ryan meant it, Pete deserved happiness. They all did.

“Listen, Ry, I gotta talk to you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Ryan sat up, elbows on his knees, leaning forward and closer to his friend. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He stops, looks down at his beer bottle in his hand and sighs. “Well…no, but.”

“Spit it out, Pete, what’s going on?”

Pete’s eyes looked glassy as they stared at each other in silence for too long. Ryan searched his face for any evidence that pointed to what was happening here but in the back of his mind, he already knew. He wasn’t so much surprised it was happening, just that it was happening now.

His last record came out five years ago, and it got almost no airplay or streams compared to his labelmates. He watched what felt like dozens of his friends disband throughout the years, jump ship from Pete’s label and move to something bigger. Gabe had stepped away from making music all together, instead opting to manage and talent scout, working with Spencer here and there to raise new talent that would replace those who had either outgrown the label or outgrown themselves. Meanwhile, Brendon’s solo career continued to climb while Patrick soared the highest, banking off of the name he made himself over the years.

“Spit it out. I can take it,” Ryan repeated.

“Ryan, it’s not personal –“

Ryan cut him off. “Now don’t do _that_ , Pete. Don’t tell me it’s not personal. Music is always personal.”

“You know what I mean,” Pete said. “I’ve always believed in you.”

“Bull shit,” Ryan spat. “That means fucking bull shit if you don’t believe in me now.”

“Ryan, it’s not just my decision. You know that. It’s never an easy decision.”

Pete slammed his beer bottle down on the coffee table as if to make his point clear. He sounded tired, like he had gone over this exact argument over and over in his head before inviting Ryan over.

Ryan didn’t say anything as he got up, leaving Pete there on the couch alone. He called Ryan’s name, Ryan’s sure he heard it, but he didn’t turn around and walk back in. He switched off his phone and headed back to Z’s where someone believed in him.

*

Ryan makes coffee in the morning. Spencer’s still sleeping on one of the bed’s in the twin’s room just at the end of the hall. He takes up the entire mattress lying there on his belly, arms spread out, drooling into his pillow. Ryan laughs to himself and remembers how they used to fuck with each other when they were kids sleeping over each other’s house.

He can see his childhood home through the kitchen window. When he called Ginger last week, she told him all about the new family that moved in. Husband, wife, two kids – two girls, both young. The wife is nice enough, she said, and the girls are sweet. Both in Girl Scouts, they came over with boxes of cookies to sell. Ryan opens the cabinet and sees one box of Thin Mints in there with a post-it note stuck to it: “For Ryan” in Ginger’s flowery handwriting.

Spencer stretches, lazily moving down the hallway. “Fucking coffee,” he groans.

“I’m not making breakfast,” Ryan says.

Spencer’s still sleep-weary fumbling around in the kitchen while he opens the sliced bread package. He pops two slices in the toaster and gestures the package to Ryan.

“I don’t eat in the mornings,” he says.

Spencer chuckles. “Yeah, living with my mom is gonna fix that real quick.”

“Unless you’re gonna make waffles with strawberries, I’m not hungry,” Ryan tells him.

Spencer grabs his toast and coffee and shrugs. They sit at the kitchen table in comfortable silence as the sun rays illuminate the room. 

“So, when do you go back to LA?”

“Wednesday,” Spencer says.

“And your parents?”

“I think their flight lands at 3 or something,” he says with a grin. “Bro, you made her fucking _life_ when you called her, you know that right? Prodigal surrogate son returns? Dude if I called her and told her I was moving back home she’d probably tell me there’s no room.”

Ryan smiles into his coffee mug. “That’s not true, dude,” he says. “Your mom loves you.”

“If she could have adopted you from George, she would have.”

“Yeah, well. She basically did.”

“Yeah,” Spencer agrees.

Spencer finishes eating and pours himself another cup of coffee, grabbing Ryan’s cup without asking to fill it up as well.

“You could always come with me to LA, you know,” Spencer says. “Stay at my place. Hook up with Alex again. Or your buddy Dan, right? He’s out there.”

Ryan shrugs. “I dunno man. I just got here. I think I need to…stay for a bit. Get back to my roots, or something equally dumb.”

Spencer laughs at him. “Yeah, well, if my mom gets annoying –“

“Utterly impossible of her.”

“–you are more than welcome to come and hide at my house.”

Ryan grins. “Thanks, Spence.”

Spencer scowls, more tired than angry. “Ryan, please stop thanking me.”

It’s not that Ryan even realizes he’s doing it at this point. He could say it a thousand times and it would never be enough.

The morning after he saw Brent in a New York City bar, he called Spencer and told him about it. They stayed on the phone, Ryan chain smoking out the window of Z’s apartment, taking in the early summer breeze. He felt fucked up, twisted up on the inside, thinking about all the dumb decisions he had made throughout the years that brought him here.

Kicking Brendon out, pushing him far away and keeping him at arm’s length all these years, made the top of the list. Closely followed by everyone else he had done that with, Spencer included.

Spencer had said to him, “You didn’t kick me out like that. I left on my own accord. I could have called you at any point in time. I could have come out to New York to visit the two of you. I could have listened to you when no one else was there.”

“You’re listening to me now,” Ryan told him.

“We’ve all got a lot of guilt we need to work through,” Spencer said. “You, me, Brendon. We’ve all done at least something a little fucked up to each other at some point. Bound to happen when you’ve been friends your whole life.”

His phone burns in his pocket now. He never texted Brendon back after he woke up yesterday. He was too nervous he’d say the wrong thing or piss him off too early. It’s too late now. If he texts him this morning, he looks like either a jerk, or like he’s been overthinking his response and both are arguably true.

His knee bounces underneath the kitchen table. It’s still early in the morning and there’s nothing to do except drink, smoke, or play video games until it’s time to pick up The Smiths from the airport. Ryan is fine with that but there’s an itch under his skin that isn’t going to allow him to sit still long enough to enjoy any of those activities.

“Got plans for the day?” Ryan asks.

“Eh, clean up a bit, restock the fridge. Why?”

Ryan shoves his hands in his pockets. “Mind if I go…out? Around?”

“Out and around, huh?” Spencer asks. He smiles at Ryan like he knows exactly what that means. “Yeah, man. Do whatever. You’re home, right?”

Ryan nods silently and grabs the spare key from the side table by the door. He thinks he can hear Spencer laugh lowly as he walks out the door and Ryan rolls his eyes.

Home. Ryan’s never really referred to any place as “home.” For a while it was his first studio apartment back in New York but only as something to call it. “Remind me when I get home to take out the trash” or “Not tonight, I gotta get home early.”

Ryan turns to the left to see his father’s house, sold to a nice young couple he never met. He can see two pink bikes in front of the garage, both with sparkly streamers attached to the handlebars, one still with training wheels and the other without. He smiles and hopes that when those girls leave this house, they leave with better memories than Ryan did.

He turns down the street kicking up rocks against the sidewalk as he goes. He lets himself open the door in his mind to so many memories he kept at bay. One by one they flood to the center. A group of girls across the way are walking with their cell phones in hand, stopping to take a group selfie in front of the Thompson’s house. Ryan tries not to stare at them or make them nervous as he remembers the girls who would walk by in groups and pause by Spencer’s garage, listening to four boys making useless noises to get their attention.

Turn right at the corner store where he used to pick up cigarettes. He almost does but then remembers he has a few left in the pack hiding in his jean’s back pocket so he keeps going. The park isn’t too far and it’s early enough on a weekday in early April that no one will be there or question why an adult man in all black dressed like an ex-member of The Cure is taking up the swings from their kid.

He takes out his cigarette pack before he sits down. It’s crumpled from sitting in his pocket since getting off the plane and he’s surprised he’s made it nearly twelve hours without smoking. His phone sits in his front pocket untouched and heavy like a brick.

There’s a small wind that shakes the chain of the swing beside him. His head turns and he swears he catches the glimpse of a slumped form, dark floppy hair and wide eyes paired with a dazzling smile.

Brendon’s memory surrounds Las Vegas. He sticks out in the familiar spots Ryan’s avoided for nearly half his life. A car goes by with its windows down and he can envision the two of them driving home from a show in the summer. He wanted so badly to touch his hand over the gear shift. When the Beatles sang “I want to hold your hand”, they had no idea how universal that sentiment was. Two teenage kids in a car, high on endorphins and dripping in sweat, and all Ryan wanted to do was grab his hand and hold it the whole drive home.

He watches the smoke of his cigarette curl towards the sky and he thinks of what he would give to hold Brendon’s hand even now.

He hasn’t been a saint these last few years. Far from it, actually. And he never expected Brendon to keep himself locked tight until Ryan came back to his senses. But he’s seen the videos of Brendon on stage saddled up next to this tall man with light eyes and marble carved features and no matter how many times Spencer’s assured him that there’s nothing going on with Brendon and Dallon, he wonders if Brendon holds his hand on late night drives, or maybe something more.

Stupid to think about as he stubs his cigarette beneath his feet under the swing. He’ll pick up the butts before he leaves but he’s not ready to go yet. He lights another, three left in the pack, he’ll have to pick up another one for the walk back.

His mind drifts to Z and how she wrote songs about him without ever telling him outright. He switched gears before Pete had even forced his hand, throwing his energy into helping her bloom and grow. He went on tour with her and even came out on stage to sing a duet. There were faces in the crowd who recognized him. Some girls even screamed until their faces went red. He leans into the memory, can hear the screams and applause, the hoots and yells for more.

Spencer tells him he has a pretty solid following on Twitter. Not that he tweets. Not that he has nothing to say. He still has things to say. He’ll find a way to say them again.

Pete told him he could come back with music and Pete would fight for him to have a place on the label.

That was part of the deal he made with himself when he came back. Come back to Vegas, find the fight within himself that he lost over the years. Leave the comfort of his apartment with Z and the fair-weather New York friends (Z’s friends, really) for the family he found and stitched together as a teenager. That would do it. It’s going to have to. He’s all out of ideas.

He picks up the butts from the bottom of his feet and catches the ire of a jogging mom with her stroller as she sticks her nose up away from his cigarettes. He flips her off and sticks another one in his mouth just for her. Fuck you, lady. This is my park.

This is his home. Spencer said it this morning. Brendon said it yesterday afternoon.

He takes his phone out and scrolls to the text again. _Welcome home_. No other texts precede it. He wonders if Brendon’s looking at the text now, watching the bubbles appear and disappear as Ryan gathers the courage to respond. He hums under his breath. Home – home is wherever I’m with you. Fuck, that’s cheesy. Doesn’t make it any less true.

He settles on _Surprised to say, it feels good to be back_ and presses send. The back of his neck feels hot and he’s not sure if it’s embarrassment burning or the Vegas sun.

Too quickly he gets a response: _Not surprised. Always knew you’d come home_.

Well, fuck. What’s he supposed to say now?

He gets back on the swing. Brendon’s waiting for a response. Or he’s bored and playing with his phone in between doing something important like writing or recording or holding hands with a beautiful man.

He answers with a non-answer: he takes a photo of his cigarette in his hand and his sneakers in the mulch and presses send. Follows that up with _guess where_ like Brendon won’t immediately know.

 _Our park_ he responds. Something in the choice of “our” that brings a lump to Ryan’s throat and forces him to swallow against the dryness of the desert. He’s not wrong though. Their shadows live in every inch of this park, buried deep in the grass and snaked around the chains of swings and jungle gyms. His lips curl into a smile as he feels Brendon, seventeen and eager with dirty jeans and stifled yawns, all around him.

Spencer texts him before he can respond to Brendon. _Lunch before airport?_ He nods to no one and taps back a thumbs up before shoving his phone back in his pocket to make his way back.

*

Ginger cries when she sees Ryan leaning against the passenger door. Her hands fly to her face and Ryan’s cheeks burn watching her practically shake with excitement at seeing him there. There are wrinkles in her face and more pronounced smile lines with small folds that line up near the corners of her eyes but it’s still her. Ryan’s just as excited even if he doesn’t show it. He scoops her into his arms and hugs her tightly. Spencer’s dad nods sharply at Ryan and opts to grab his son by the shoulders for a quick hug before putting their bags in the trunk.

“Mom,” Spencer warns, “Mom, you’re going to crush him.”

“Oh, stop it,” Ginger mumbles but she takes a step back away from Ryan anyway. She looks at him and at her son and brings her hands to her chest, right over her heart.

“My boys are back,” she coos, emotion coating her voice. Both Ryan and Spencer smile at her, shaking their heads.

Spencer lets himself laugh lightly as they merge into the lane and get out of the Vegas airport. Ryan sees Ginger in the backseat with her wet and shiny eyes and he smiles at her through the rearview window. She smiles back and it’s the best Ryan’s felt in years.


	16. I Shouldn't Blame Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s an eerily familiar scene when Brendon slides his sunglasses up to his forehead and Ryan’s eyes cover every inch of his expressive face like he’s seeing it for the first time. He takes in his forehead (still huge) and eyes (still deep, warm, and the size of the moon) and a mouth so big with lips so soft and the sight makes his palms so sweaty and his limbs so numb that he drops his cigarette without thinking.

Spencer leaves on Wednesday and up until then, it felt so temporary, like he was a normal son taking a normal visit to see his normal family. Spencer asks him three times if he’s changed his mind about coming with him to LA and it’s eerily reminiscent of the days leading up to them moving to New York over a decade ago. Each time, Ryan politely declines but it does nothing to smooth the concerned wrinkles that appear on Spencer’s forehead.

Both of Spencer’s parents still work and so they’re in and out while Ryan tries not to mess anything up too much. He puts dishes away after he uses them and makes Spencer’s bed every morning. He tries not to sleep in too late – Ginger is the latest to leave around 8:30 or so – but there have been a few restless nights that force him to wake up around 10.

He wants to say that he’s always had trouble sleeping but that’s not necessarily true. He couldn’t sleep on his first tour but he slept alright when he joined Z on hers. He slept okay in Alex’s unfamiliar guest bed and even better in Pete’s New York apartment the few times he’d found himself waking up there (though that could have been the alcohol, who’s to say).

He lies in bed, door closed and lights off, plays with his phone and hovers over the names he could text but never does. _Can’t sleep_ , he types, and presses send before he can think twice about it.

Brendon’s quick to respond. _Melatonin_.

Ryan sends an “lol” and he guesses that’s how it starts.

Like a teenager, he sneaks out of the Smiths’ house and heads to the park at one in the morning. He chain smokes on the way there and by the time he’s reached the swings, he’s tired down to his bones, but his brain sparks and sizzles like a livewire. He carries his notebook under his arm and he stubs out his cigarette so he can look up at the moon over the park and start writing under its illumination.

There are so many words in there, scribbled and messy and filling up the margins like he can no longer contain them without fear of bursting. He writes about himself this time, no more allegories but the fanciful language remains. He jots down in both rhyme and prose how he’s feeling and the mistakes he’s made that brought him here to these swings. He’d write about why he can’t sleep but he doesn’t think he’s figured that one out quite yet.

It’s both early and late depending on who you ask, and the shine of the moon is obscured by clouds. Ryan rolls up his notebook and tucks it into the back pocket of his jeans, no longer able to see what he’s written down. He pulls out a cigarette and looks around the empty park and how still everything remains, how unchanged it is fifteen years later. He’s legs push him back and forth and he hums a melody that’s far too sweet to blend in with what he’s been writing down.

He doesn’t know anyone left in the neighborhood, he thinks, as he looks around the suburban homes that line the edges of the park. Ginger tells him over morning coffees and breakfast about the family next door and the ones who moved in across the street. She tells him about her daughters, about Spencer even if Ryan already knows about Spencer, about her job.

She blankets her hand over his while she chats and he listens, silently sipping his coffee and smiling.

“You still talk to Brendon?” she asked one morning. Ryan’s ears burned at the question.

“Sometimes,” he said and it’s not a lie because sometimes he texts Brendon and sometimes Brendon texts him.

Something in her eyes shifted at Ryan’s answer. It must be where Spencer gets it from, the inability to maintain a poker face, secrets spilled across their features.

“He had a tough go of it, that boy,” Ginger said, tearing her eyes from Ryan’s and looking down at her own coffee mug. “I remember when he came back from New York the first time, his mother wouldn’t let him back in the house. Poor kid slept on our couch for a few weeks until he flew back.”

“Yeah, uh, I remember hearing something like that,” Ryan admitted. He shifted uncomfortably, squirming in the kitchen chair like he was finally under investigation for his crimes. He knew he’d have to pay for them eventually.

“He’s a good kid,” Ginger said. “Still is. He asks about you all the time,” a dangling piece of bait that Ryan would not take.

She patted the top of Ryan’s hand and smiled, something warmer and more playful dancing behind her look replacing the seriousness of before.

“Spencer said he’ll be home around the same time he will be. Just in time for your birthdays!”

Ryan sipped his coffee and chuckled. “Just in time for our birthdays, huh?”

“Well, if you’re still here in September – might be nice to throw a little get together for the two of you. When’s the last time you two got to celebrate your birthdays together?”

Ryan was 18. Spencer was 17. He kissed Brendon in Spencer’s room and pushed him against the door so no one would be able to barge in on the two of them. They hid in there until their lips were bright red and swollen and looking back on it now, Ryan’s pretty sure anyone would have known what they were doing in there.

“I don’t know,” he started, but Ginger looked at him with Spencer’s blue eyes and he couldn’t really say no then, could he.

Underneath the clouded moonlight, he thinks about texting Brendon to ask him when he’ll arrive but he keeps swinging instead. He gets higher and higher and his heart races and he thinks maybe it’s time to cut down on cigarettes and coffee. Maybe it’s time to settle down.

*

He hasn’t had a birthday party since he turned 25. Even his thirtieth was an informal gathering at an unknown venue he managed to show up to. There are photos buried on Instagram and Facebook of blood shot eyes and bodies hanging off of each other in the bright light of an iPhone flash but Ryan doesn’t remember really anything of that night, not enough to refer to it as a “birthday party” more than another Saturday night but with cameras.

The Smiths’ backyard is decorated with streamers and white plastic folding tables are placed neatly in a line ready to be covered with what will undoubtedly be too much food. Only one of the twins, Crystal, could make it and she gave Ryan an awkward pat on the back when she arrived. Polite enough to not be rude, brief and clumsy enough to feel awkward and unnecessary. Ginger gratefully calls for her daughter to come to the kitchen and help her and Crystal shuffles away like a hummingbird, leaving Ryan to stand guard by the cooler and stare at the yard until he’s called to work.

He can hear Spencer shuffle in with a suitcase and the excited voices of his mother and sister greeting him at the door. He stands at the sliding glass entrance to the backyard and watches through the kitchen as Spencer wrestles his way out of his family’s hugs. Ryan knows they’re family, more family than he’s even known and more than he deserves. But he knows with only a dull ache in his chest that he’ll never know what it feels like to receive a greeting like that.

Ryan turns back to the open yard and grabs a beer from the cooler instead. It’s late summer Vegas hot and the sun shines so bright it feels inescapable. He unfolds his sunglasses from their spot hanging in the neck of his t-shirt to slide them gracefully over his eyes.

Spencer comes out look flustered, running a hand through his hair and grabbing for a beer in the cooler Ryan leans against. He mutters a few swears under his breath but he’s smiling, regardless.

“How did she talk you into this?” Spencer asks when he settles against Ryan’s side.

“You know she didn’t have to,” Ryan says. He tips the neck of his beer bottle at his friend and Spencer mirrors him, the glass clinking together.

“Happy birthday, Ryan.”

“Happy birthday, Spencer.”

They drink.

Ryan can hear music coming from inside the house – the radio playing soft pop in a pretty feminine voice – and he drums his fingers to the beat on the side of his thigh. Spencer nods his head along to the song and it feels like taking a step back in time, teenage kids sneaking drinks in the summertime, singing along to the radio and letting their imaginations stretch.

“Who did she invite to this thing?” Spencer asks.

“No clue. You, your sisters, Brent –“

“Bull shit,” Spencer laughs. “Could you fucking imagine? She should call Brent and Trevor over and we could have a Summer League reunion.”

Ryan laughs out loud at that. His stomach doesn’t twist as much as he expected it would at the idea and the back of his mind tells him that might be growth or something.

“I know she invited Brendon,” Ryan says when the laughter dies down.

“Mhm,” Spencer hums in agreement. He doesn’t say anything but his eyes dart quickly to Ryan’s face before staring back straight ahead.

“It’s weird watching you try and be sneaky after all these years,” Ryan says.

Spencer elbows him in the ribs and Ryan blocks him with his beer bottle, the beer sloshing over the side and spraying them. Ryan pushes against his elbow and they jostle back and forth between fits of laughter just as Ginger comes out with a tray of chips.

“Boys!” she calls. “Knock it off and help me with the food, please.”

They disconnect and jog on over to help her set up a few trays. It still feels like it’s all too much, a bit too unnecessary, but the doorbell rings and even though Ryan doesn’t recognize the voice, he hears the joy in Ginger’s and that’s all that matters.

Ryan and Spencer hide in the corner of the yard, grabbing beers from the cooler and shaking hands with guests saying “Oh, hey, what’s up, good to see you,” for the most part. Ryan keeps drinking until he wants a cigarette and Spencer’s feeling a little lightheaded himself so he opens the gated fence to let them sneak out for a minute.

There are cars parked in the driveway and on the grass and Ryan’s brain stumbles trying to imagine how many family members and cousins have been invited to this homecoming birthday party for Ginger’s eldest sons.

He reaches for his cigarette pack and lights two in his mouth at the same time, handing one over to Spencer.

“Dude, that’s gross,” he says, wrinkling his nose but taking a drag anyway. Ryan just shrugs and watches the cars go by.

He hears the distinctive beeping of a car locking in the distance and he looks a few houses over to find the source. Brendon’s in tight black jeans and a fitted black tee, black wayfarers covering his eyes. Ryan can see more tattoos peeking through the short sleeves. He looks broader, less skinny than he was the last time they ran into each other. Though this isn’t running into each other; this time it’s deliberate.

Spencer walks up first, dying his cigarette out under his shoe before he leaves Ryan abandoned on the side of the house. He grabs Brendon and hugs him tightly like it’s been a while since they last saw each other. It could be true, Ryan thinks. Brendon’s probably busy, Spencer too. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and thinks about how busy he’s been listening to the town gossip over coffee every morning.

It’s an eerily familiar scene when Brendon slides his sunglasses up to his forehead and Ryan’s eyes cover every inch of his expressive face like he’s seeing it for the first time. He takes in his forehead (still huge) and eyes (still deep, warm, and the size of the moon) and a mouth so big with lips so soft and the sight makes his palms so sweaty and his limbs so numb that he drops his cigarette without thinking.

They reach Ryan around the side of the house and Spencer steps aside to let Brendon stand front and center. And just like the first night they met, at a joint birthday party in the Vegas suburbs, Brendon sticks his hand out Ryan’s way. Ryan takes it and his spine straightens, emboldened by the electric feel of holding Brendon’s hand again.

“Happy birthday,” Brendon says. His voice is low and Ryan swallows, dropping Brendon’s hand and putting his own in his pockets.

“You remembered,” Ryan says. It’s meant to be a joke and Brendon’s polite smile twists into a smirk and Ryan knows he got it.

Spencer claps a hand over Brendon’s shoulder, shaking them both out of the moment. “Come on, beers are waiting,” he says and ushers his friends through the side of the fence and into the backyard. Brendon looks over at Ryan and Ryan returns the gaze and there is something genuine in his eyes that Ryan hasn’t seen in years, something he didn’t realize he missed so badly.


	17. I've Been the Hardest to Love

The party quietly continues with the hum of the radio songs floating through the backyard. The Smiths have twinkling lights that hang overhead and Ryan watches as the sun falls and the twinkle lights turn on. He’d rather have the real stars, but this is just as well.

Brendon kisses Ginger on the cheek when he walks in the backyard and Crystal smiles at him shyly, taking a one-armed hug from him with joy. Ryan watches from the corner as the women flock to him and he draws them in like nothing has changed. He’s more handsome now than he ever was, charming and confident. It’s nothing like the faux cockiness he carried with him as a teenager and even into his early twenties. This is him believing in himself in a way that he could only discover on his own.

Something akin to pride fills Ryan’s chest. The years between them have grown into an ocean, calm at times yet still tumultuous and unpredictable. Ryan’s felt the push of Brendon’s waves over the years, knocking him into the sand with his success and his air play, the things Ryan worked so hard for but never really achieved on his own. Tonight doesn’t feel like that, though. Tonight feels like a new tide.

The three of them sit together, eating and drinking and laughing, hosting their own party by themselves in their small sliver of the yard while the other guests mingle and drink for their own benefit. When Ginger calls it’s time for cake, Spencer and Ryan roll their eyes but oblige her and stand together for a photo because they know it will make her happy. The small crowd sings them happy birthday and Ryan makes out Brendon’s voice, clear as day, eyes shining under the twinkle lights as he sings best wishes.

Ryan blushes thinking about the last time Brendon sang him happy birthday – in their studio apartment in the city, sitting Ryan on the edge of the bed, crooning in just his briefs, crawling on top of him to punctuate the end with a messy kiss. He wonders if Brendon is thinking about it too as he watches his eyes cast down to the ground.

People start to leave and wave goodbye to the trio, gathered around the circle of empty beer bottles they’re leaving behind. Ginger pulls Spencer by the edge of his sleeve to help clean up and both Ryan and Brendon laugh when they hear him whine at his mother’s instance.

They’re left alone, playing with the bottles in their hands and feeling the weight of time and regret sink between them. The longer they sit in silence, the easier that weight feels to carry, but Ryan speaks first and breaks the spell of comfortability.

“How long are you in town for?” he asks.

Brendon looks up at him like he’s noticing Ryan for the first time tonight. His eyes study his features for a moment too long before answering. “Just until tomorrow,” he says. “Then, I dunno. I’m on break.”

“You can do that?” he asks. Brendon shrugs. “Pete doesn’t have you on a leash?”

Brendon laughs. “Nah, he’s been pretty hands-off since the last album.”

Ryan leans forward and his voice lowers. “And your partner?”

Brendon’s eyes narrow in confusion and he leans low to match Ryan’s level. “What partner?”

“Dallon?” he blushes, grateful for the dim light of the evening that Brendon may not be able to see just how deeply.

Brendon breaks into a grin and he hides his face behind his beer bottle as he snorts in laughter.

“Oh, dude, not you too,” he says, shaking his head. “No, he’s like…no, we’re not together.”

“Oh,” Ryan says, lamely. “I mean, I’ve just, you know. Seen some clips. On YouTube and whatever.” He rushes down a gulp of beer to hide his embarrassment and stammering while Brendon keeps grinning.

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the point,” he says. He leans back in his chair and relaxes, tips his head back and sighs for a moment before coming back to look at Ryan. “Remember when we used to talk about our live shows? Like, when we were teenagers? And we would talk about how crazy the girls would get if we, y’know, put on a show or whatever?” Ryan nods. “Okay, so like, that’s what we’re doing. It’s a show.”

“Uh huh,” Ryan says. He doesn’t point out that when they were putting on a show in Spencer’s garage, it wasn’t just a show for them. He doesn’t remind him of the nights they left practice early to hide in Ryan’s bedroom for hours, memorizing each other’s bodies with shaking, unsure hands. He doesn’t have to say it, he knows Brendon remembers.

“Anyway, what about you?” Brendon asks.

“What about me?” Ryan asks.

Brendon’s free hand circles the air and fills the space. “Y’know, you and Z. I heard you went on tour together. Some of those songs…” he doesn’t finish the thought, but Ryan knows what’s saying: they’re all about him.

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “I mean, no. No, we’re not. We never were, actually.”

“Never?”

Ryan shakes his head. “No, never. She’s intense, and she loves intensely. I’ve seen her fall in love and it’s always very all or nothing each time. And I love her, I really do. But…not in the way that she deserves to be loved, I guess.”

“Does she know that?” Brendon asks.

“Yeah, actually. We, uh, we talked about it. At length, now that I think about it.”

He shrugs, fearing that he may have said too much. His beer is empty and Brendon’s gaze is hot on his face.

“Wow,” Brendon says. “Good for you.”

“For?”

“Learning how to communicate your feelings. Only took you fifteen years but I’m glad to see it happen for you.”

Brendon’s smiling as he teases him and Ryan laughs under his breath. “Yeah, I’m glad too.”

There’s no one left in the backyard except the two of them. Both of their eyes scan their surroundings, more and more aware of how alone they are together. It’s not as daunting as it was those years ago and it makes Ryan brave, braver than he’s felt in a long time.

“You just got in today?” he asks.

“Yeah, stopped by my parents’ house to drop off my things and came straight here.”

“So, you haven’t really been around, huh,” Ryan says.

Brendon’s eyes light up, reminiscent of the teenager he met in another backyard at another birthday party. “You got a place in mind?” he asks.

It’s the natural instinct, muscle memory tinted in rose, that makes Ryan get up from his chair and offer his hand. It must be the same that makes Brendon take it to lift himself up. They both set their beer bottles down on the grass and Ryan leads them through the gate of the fence. Their fingers remain interlaced until they reach the sidewalk where they break apart, shoving their hands in their respective pockets but never really leaving the other one’s orbit. Ryan can feel Brendon’s body, radiating heat and energy without even having to touch him again.

They kick pebbles down the sidewalk and Ryan doesn’t light a cigarette in favor of keeping his hands still in his pockets while he listens to Brendon talk. He can still do that, Ryan notes. He’s made it an art form over the years, talking about absolutely nothing in the most beautiful way that leaves Ryan hanging on every word. He stays silent, content to listen and drink in his voice. He’s both at times impossibly loud yet speaking so softly that only Ryan can hear him.

“You took me here the first night we met,” Brendon says as they reach the perimeter of the park.

“I didn’t really take you,” Ryan says. “We just sort of ended up here.”

“Felt like a journey to me,” Brendon says fondly.

He heads towards the swings where there are sure to be left over cigarette butts kicked into the mulch. Brendon shakes the mangled chain of the open swing beside him and Ryan sits in it. He looks down: cigarette filters crumbled beneath his feet. He covers them with mulch while Brendon starts to swing.

“I’ve been coming here nearly every night since I got back,” Ryan tells him. “Trying to feel like that kid who took you here again but it’s not coming so easily.”

Brendon slows his swinging but keeps pumping through the air. “Nah, you don’t want to be that kid,” he says.

“No?”

“No way. He was an asshole.”

Ryan bristles. “I don’t remember you complaining,” he mutters.

“Of course not, you were too busy being an asshole to think about anyone other than yourself.”

He says it so easily, like Ryan’s selfishness was obvious to everyone, Ryan included. “That’s not how I remember it,” Ryan argues.

“Yeah, I bet it isn’t,” Brendon says.

“Are you mad at me?”

Brendon stops all together, sneakers acting like breaks in the mulch and skidding him to a halt. He hangs his head and sighs for a moment before pulling his shoulders back and chancing to look at Ryan, right in the eyes, a different passion lit behind them than the fire that normally burns whenever they meet.

“For a very, very long time,” he says. “Yeah, I was mad at you. You were my first everything, Ryan. First love, first boyfriend, first time – and the first person to break my heart, too. Last time we saw each other, I thought I wasn’t mad at you anymore. Like enough time had gone by and we had done enough growing apart that seeing you wouldn’t evoke such a…visceral reaction in me. But I saw you in that bar and I almost ran the other direction at first.”

“Why didn’t you?” Ryan asks. His voice is small, tinged with regret.

“You looked so fucking good,” Brendon laughs. “I just…fuck, I wanted to be with you again. I wanted to feel all that intensity you give off and just drink you back in.”

Ryan swallows, his heart pounding so hard he can hear it in his ears, feel it in his throat. “And now?”

“Now?” Brendon whispers. They’ve gravitated closer again, their bodies magnetized like they always are. “I don’t know. You tell me. Are you mad at me?”

Brendon looks up at him beneath dark lashes. He’s captivating once again, and Ryan knows that the memories of him that surround this place are nothing compared to the real deal.

“I’m not mad at you,” Ryan says. “Not for telling me the truth. Not for telling me how you feel. How you felt.”

“And you? How did you feel then?”

He could kiss him. He could reach out and cup his jaw and take his lips like they belonged to him again and it would stop them from speaking anymore on this. They could change the course of the trip they’re currently on, take a sharp left out of there and turn back, back to the beginning.

Instead he sighs, leaning back just far enough away to stop the temptation before it takes hold of him. Brendon does the same, twisting back to sit forward but not taking his dark eyes off of his form. This time, Ryan does reach for the cigarettes in his pocket and he lights one quickly before exhaling a stream straight up to the sky.

“I was very jealous – not just of you but of everyone back then. Everyone was doing so well and for some reason I just couldn’t figure out why nothing was working for _me_. And I was stubborn. I thought that I had it in me to be great if I could just get rid of everything that served as a distraction.”

“So, I was a distraction,” Brendon says. He doesn’t sound hurt by it, maybe confused, but not wounded.

“I loved you and I was jealous of you and I blamed you for my own failures. Just like I did with Brent, just like I did with Spencer, just like I did with my dad. You said that to me before you left, remember?”

“I may have been a little harsh.”

“Doesn’t make you less right,” Ryan says. He brings his cigarette to his lips again and catches Brendon staring at his mouth from the corner of his eye. He deliberately takes his time inhaling.

“The last time you saw me, I was in a bad fucking place. My dad died, Jon just quit –“

“I remember.”

“– and right before my dad died, I was drinking all the fucking time because I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I thought I needed to drink, I guess. My whole world was turning to shit and then I turn around and there you are, waiting for me at the bar. And for so long, when things were terrible, I would look at you and know that I had something good in my life I could still hold on to. You were there and I wanted to hold on to you but I didn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you again. So, I left you there, alone in your hotel room, and I thought I did the right thing and I still thought that the next morning when you came to see me. And, honest to God, to this day I think about how I shouldn’t have let you leave. I watched you get in that car and drive away and I wondered for years if I made the right choice.”

When Brendon speaks again, his voice is hoarse and quiet but the question still lands between them heavily.

“And now? Do you think you made the right choice?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “You’re here now and you’re happy and successful and you deserve those things. You worked hard for them, you wanted it as much as I did.”

“So did you,” Brendon says and for the first time he looks down at his feet, unable or unwilling to read Ryan’s expressions any longer. “Fuck, look at us. We could have saved ourselves a lot of heartbreak if we were just honest with each other from the beginning.”

That overly courageous feeling returns and Ryan reaches his hand out to grab Brendon’s laying limp by his side. Brendon looks at their hands together and frowns, shakes his head in disbelief, but doesn’t pull away or let go. He moves his legs gently rocking his swing back and forth and Ryan’s hand moves along with his movements.

“How honest can we be now?” Ryan whispers in the dark. “Because there’s so much more I could say.”

He doesn’t see the kiss coming so it lands somewhere softly on the corner of his mouth, not quite where it was meant to be. Brendon doesn’t stop moving but curls his body closer and forces Ryan to turn and hold his gaze. He watches in slow motion as they both lean into each other, their lips softly connecting in a chaste kiss. His body liquifies against Brendon’s mouth and he falls into the soft warmth that surrounds him. His eyes drift shut and he feels hands come up to hold him by the jaw, guiding him and deepening the kiss. Ryan returns the intensity, pressing just a bit more insistently, tangled in the chains of his swing set.

Brendon lets go of his lips to bring their foreheads together. His fingers travel to the back of his neck and curl into his hair, tugging lightly. His eyes are still gently closed and he exhales a shaky breath against Ryan’s lips. Ryan lets himself lean in for another kiss, this time firmer but shorter than before, and he surges up so fast he nearly falls forward in the strength of it. But he’s determined to chase those lips and bring them back to him over and over again. He wants to claim Brendon’s mouth, mark his lips and tongue as belonging to him and only him.

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Brendon murmurs. “I want you to take me home.”

“There’s too many people,” Ryan says. “I can’t –“

“My parents’ house is empty,” Brendon rushes. He grabs Ryan’s hand and brings it to his lips to place a kiss to his knuckles. “Come back with me?”

“Yes.”

If he sounds desperate, if his voice cracks with want, then fuck it.

They walk back to Brendon’s car, sneaking kisses against the trunks of palm trees every block or two. Ryan can’t keep his hands to himself touching every visible inch of Brendon’s skin and hoping he’s not so distracted that he trips over his own two feet in the process. He feels the warmth of his back, the dip just above his beltline. His jeans are still too tight but he looks incredible in them. They slide into Brendon’s car and Ryan grabs him by the t-shirt and pulls him, kisses him again and if they weren’t parked so close to the Smiths home, Ryan would just have him there in the front seat of the car.

They don’t say a word to each other on the drive. Brendon sets his hand on Ryan’s thigh and lets it creep closer and closer up to his zipper the further they drive. Ryan’s skin is on fire and he squirms against the touch. Brendon’s eyes are on the road but he’s breathing heavily while his hand works to unbutton Ryan’s jeans without looking. He gasps when Brendon touches him through his briefs and his head falls back while his hips push forward. Brendon bites his lip, groans, and Ryan takes his hand and presses it harder, shimmies his jeans further down his hips to give Brendon better access to take him and stroke him properly.

No one is home when they pull up, just like Brendon promised, and he barely gets the car parked in the driveway before launching himself on Ryan in a scorching kiss. His hand releases him and Ryan whines at the loss of contact but Brendon stops him, whispers in his ear to wait, just wait, and Ryan’s going to combust there in the car if they don’t get into that house soon.

The room looks hauntingly unchanged, even if he’s only ever been inside of it a handful of times. The walls are a dark, dusk blue, with that chunky mid-toned oak wood furniture: a matching dresser, end tables, and queen-sized bed with a headboard and sloped footboard. In the corner is a brushed black metal desk with a desktop computer and a mousepad covered in ink pen scribbles and doodles. There are still composition notebooks and three ring binders on the bottom shelves, though neatly organized now and not rifled through the way they would have been had a sixteen-year-old boy still lived there.

Brendon comes up behind him and knocks him back into reality. Here he stands in Brendon’s childhood bedroom, staring at the furniture and daydreaming about nothing when he’s about to get all he’s ever wanted. He shakes his head and turns to kiss him again. He pours everything he has into that kiss – every unsaid word, every hidden meaning, every year they spent apart. Brendon gives it back to him just as intensely and pushes them into his bed. He straddles Ryan, both still in their jeans, and he takes his shirt off while he rolls his hips just to make Ryan’s back arch in a silent beg for more.

Confessions in the form of moans fill the walls. Clothes are messily discarded in the corners of the room in favor of skin on skin. When Ryan wraps a hand around Brendon’s cock, heavy and leaking in his grasp, Brendon moans so loudly and kisses him so hard it knocks the breath from his body and he can barely steady himself to continue.

Hands are everywhere, touching each other with one goal in mind. It’s never been like this – this impassioned burning where every touch licks like a flame upon their skin. When Brendon finally enters him, starts moving his hips with purpose and hits that spot, Ryan sees stars like fireworks burst behind his eyelids. His body drips with sweat, a mixture from both of them, and they both elicit pleas to each other. Don’t stop, please god, don’t stop.

Ryan’s body goes rigid and he grips Brendon’s biceps hard, his nails leaving half-moon indents into his skin, and he comes hard in his own hand between them. His muscles are spent, exhaustion following quickly when he feels Brendon fill him up with his own orgasm.

Brendon kisses him until he physically no longer can, until they’re just breathing against each other in the blissful come down. Eventually they break apart only to come back together, Ryan’s back against the headboard, Brendon’s head on his chest. Ryan plays with the damp hair stuck to the back of his neck and Brendon peppers kisses across his chest and neck until they give into their exhaustion.

They don’t sleep tucked into each other, rather they sleep like they did years ago when they shared a bed and a home together. Brendon settles into his side, Ryan comfortably nestled on the other.

The sun’s rays filter through the curtains to force him awake. He takes in the morning light, glances at Brendon peacefully sleeping on his back, and he rolls out of bed carefully. His legs carry him to the desk in the corner of the room, his hands itching to do something.

He looks out the window the desk is facing and thinks he can see every house in Summerlin from here. Some homes have backyard pools, some don’t, some have lanai patios with perfectly tiled floors. It’s the manicured, manufactured, picture perfect life he never wanted and never asked for. Some people spend their whole lives working their way to the middle to own one of these homes right here, with the 2.5 kids and the dog and the two vacations a year, not including the occasional flight to visit grandparents for the holidays. He chances a look back at Brendon and thinks that might not be so bad, not if he had the right person to share that kind of life with.

He pulls a notebook out from beneath the rubble of lost academia and grabs a pencil from the holder in the corner. He can’t really call what he’s doing “sketching” but it’s a little more fleshed out than your standard doodle. He takes the pencil and attempts to crosshatch the shadows he sees. He thinks of his art history professor: who do we make art for? This, Ryan can say for sure, he makes only for himself.

Brendon stirs beneath the blankets and Ryan looks over at him, distracted from poking and prodding the pages any longer. He’s still not fully awake, caught in that state where the edges of a dream begin to fade and slip through the cracks of sunlight streaming through. A soft sigh escapes his lips and he turns his head towards Ryan, eyelids fluttering but still unopened.

The blanket slips further with every movement to reveal a smooth, broad chest, raising slightly with every inhalation. Ryan watches with rapt fascination, his pencil sliding out of his grasp and falling gently in the open spine of the notebook.

“You’re staring,” Brendon mumbles. A rough smile curls up at the edges of his perfect mouth and it’s everything for Ryan not to leap from the rolling chair and kiss him all over again.

“Did you always stare at me while I was sleeping?” he asks with his eyes slowly opening. Ryan nods, unembarrassed. “Fucking creepy,” he mumbles but sits up anyway and stretches against the headboard, lazy and cat-like.

Ryan sets the notebook down on the desk face down and open in favor of getting back into Brendon’s bed again. His body and sheets are warm, bathed in sunlight and heavily messed. Brendon scoots to make room and grabs him by the shoulders to pull him closely, presses him into his chest like that’s exactly where he belongs.

Brendon’s hands are awake, his fingers dancing over Ryan’s bare skin and pressing into his neck, slowly massaging the muscles there. “You’re tense,” he whispers in Ryan’s ear. Ryan rolls his shoulders and allows his head to fall back against Brendon. The stubble on his jaw scratches Ryan lightly and he breathes in deeply, let’s himself take in the early morning.

“What do we do now?” Ryan asks.

Brendon cranes his neck to turn towards the bedside table. He taps his phone and glances at the time. “I leave for LA in…three hours,” he says. “Gives us an extra hour and a half before I go.”

“I meant –“

“I know what you meant.” He sighs, his hands still rubbing soothing circles into Ryan’s muscles. “I don’t have an answer.”

“Well, what do you want?”

It’s an unfair question, one that Ryan doesn’t have a concrete answer to himself. But Brendon doesn’t startle at it the way Ryan expected him to. He dips his head down and brings his lips to Ryan’s ear.

“You,” he whispers. “Just you.”

Ryan turns in his arms and fits himself perfectly against Brendon’s lap. They still fit, awkwardly as they always have, but they fit.

“You’ve always had me,” he says and kisses Brendon so deeply, he has to know it’s true.


	18. I Haven't Stopped Loving You Once

**Epilogue**

Brendon drops him back off on his way to the airport. He leans over to kiss him softly before he lets him exit the car. His hands are gentle but firm and Ryan can still feel them all over his body when Brendon pulls out of the driveway.

Spencer’s sitting on the couch starting up the Xbox and he gives Ryan a smirk but doesn’t say anything. Ryan sits next to him and picks up the controller from the coffee table just in time. They play a few games in silence until Ryan’s phone buzzes against his leg with a text from Brendon alerting him that the plane landed. He can’t see the smile on his face, but the way Spencer knocks his elbow into his side tells him he must look ridiculous.

“I take it you had a good birthday,” Spencer chides.

“Sure did,” Ryan says.

“Fucking finally.”

*

It snows in Vegas.

Ryan watches it fall from the sky in big fluffy white flakes that shake out a dusting onto the leaves of the palm trees. He watches it hit the ground and land without melting immediately. It sticks to the sidewalks and onto the green lawns of the neighbors’ yards.

He doesn’t leave the window. He spends the day watching the snow fall until it stops, and he thinks for a moment that it never will. It snowed in 2008 but he wasn’t here to see it. Spencer sent Brendon pictures and Brendon had bounced on their bed, shaking with excitement to share the images of snow in the desert.

It’s happened more than he realized but it doesn’t do anything to dim the sense of childlike wonder he feels watching from his window. He grabs his notebook, now almost full, with just enough room for him to share the beauty he sees in those last few lines available.

He flies to LA the next day. His flight is delayed to the weather and he laughs in his seat with his seatbelt fastened and tray table up because of course his short flight would be stalled by this.

They hold each other in the airport parking lot for far too long, their chests pressed up against one another, their hearts beating the same rhythm in time. It’s been both too long and not long enough when Ryan says “I love you” when instead of hello and Brendon kisses him in the middle of a line of cars that beep and curse at them for holding everyone else up. Brendon gives them the finger and Ryan laughs against his lips just to kiss him again.

They drive to Brendon’s house – not his apartment, his _house_ – and Ryan feels inadequate the moment Brendon turns the key. Brendon kisses him in the hallway, pushes him up against the front door, slips his jacket off somewhere up the stairs and how they make it to the bedroom without disconnecting their lips is a near-Olympic feat. They tangle themselves in one another’s limbs against Brendon’s sheets, their bodies taking care of each other and sharing in their devotion. When they finally come down, they still hold on to each other like they’re afraid they’ll slip away again.

Ryan digs through his bag to hand Brendon his notebook while Brendon digs through his discarded jeans pocket to hand Ryan a key. It invites the same reaction.

“Every love song I’ve ever written has been for you,” Ryan says.

He watches Brendon open the ratted pages, the coffee stains and ash smears that swallow some of the lines. There are doodles in the margins and angry looking underlines that scratch into the paper. Brendon takes his finger, runs it down the edges of the words like he’ll absorb the meaning even more that way.

Ryan turns the metal key in his hand, not forgetting the token of trust that Brendon just shared with him. They’re both the same – each an entry into the other’s life.

Yesterday, it snowed in Vegas, but Ryan doesn’t have to go back there ever again.

**FIN.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything brought us to this moment here. I'm very proud of myself for not giving up on this fic that I have wanted to write for so long but never had the confidence to share. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to anyone who left a comment, kudos, or came back to read the latest chapter. Never did I think anyone would read this fic (which I dubbed "the most self indulgent piece of trash I have ever written") so it means the world to me that anyone took the time to check it out. I hope you enjoyed this even slightly as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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